Changes
by Sailor Silver Moon
Summary: Chihiro left the Spirit World changed...but what if she had changed too much? Now in high school, she finds her actions gravitating around one boy. One oddly familiar, frustratingly handsome boy. CxH
1. Too Much of a Good Thing

**Changes: Too much of a good thing**

            Chihiro sighed.  She tried as hard as she could to hide her boredom.  It was a lovely Saturday morning and she was spending it in the wonderful vicinity of her 3-A classroom.  Woe was her.  She attempted to keep her eyes focused as the teacher went over the problem, yet again, for the supposed benefit of a confused pupil.  She wanted to jump up and ask the girl why she was in Class A if she couldn't follow a simply polar mathematics problem, but nope.  Onigo Chihiro, top female student in the 10th grade, couldn't condone such an outburst of emotion.

It wasn't that she was insecure about status, easily annoyed at delays or a perfectionist, no, not at all.  She had a normal span of emotions, and then some.  She just preferred to keep as much as she could locked away from the general public – a move that had brought her the appearance of being the perfect student genetics could produce.

        _Just look forward and smile slightly_, she kept repeating to herself.  _How long has class been going on already?  Oh, only a half hour.  This is going to be one long Saturday morning._  Chihiro tried to keep the hopelessness of the situation under wraps, but even as she meant to sit still, she felt her body slump over ever so slightly, bringing her desk into her line of vision.  Eyes blinking repeatedly in surprise at her own lack of control, she appraised the situation.  _Alright, look around slowly.  Slowly now, don't want anyone who didn't notice anything to see me looking suspicious.  Just glance over.  Her chocolate eyes darted to the right, and then, to the left.  Neither of the students next to her had noticed anything.  She was in the clear._

        Thankful, she turned slightly back to her left, refocusing her attention on the board and out of the corner of her eye, she saw him.  He was staring at her from his position, conveniently located diagonally reverse of her own.  Nigihayami Kohaku, the top student, male or female, of the 10th grade class.  Chihiro would have faced a thousand deaths rather than admit it, but the boy fascinated her.  No, she wasn't obsessed over his study build or his prowess on the athletic field or his aptitude in the classroom setting.  She was furious about his ability to oust her from the top spot.

        Through grade school, she was at the peak of the social pyramid.  The teachers adored her, her fellow students simpered over her helpful ways and other parents constantly verbalized their wish that their own child could be like her.  And Chihiro had basked in it all.  Wallowed in the praise, delighted in the attention and had come close to a song and dance number in the sheer joyousness of the whole situation.

        But this childhood dream was not to last.  On the very first day of high school, she sat expectantly at the all school assembly.  Without doubt, she would be named as the most intelligent member of the class.  As the principle's winded speech drew near the coveted name, she finally decided that when called upon, she would offer her thanks at the recognition and promise her class to work her hardest in their interest.  But she'd never had the chance.  Her spotlight had cruelly been stolen.  It was not "Onigo Chihiro" that was cast into the tense air, but "Nigihayami Kohaku."

        Stunned, she had watched his seemingly heartfelt acceptance of the duties that came with the top rank.  He was barely two seats from her and yet, there were no eyes focused on her.  They were all watching him.  Heck, even she was watching him, mouth almost hanging off its hinges in shock.  She was left in the darkness of an understudy, doomed never to see the light of the stage.

        But that part didn't fit into Chihiro's plans.  _So what?  A pretentious brat stole the top spot in the class.  It's not the end of the world.  I wasn't always at the top of my class.  Her reasoning was perfectly justified.  Before she had moved to the small town of Yokto, she had never had any real ambition to be the best.  "I guess the move here really spurred our little Chihiro to new lengths," she had heard more than once from her parents, proud of their daughter's accomplishments.  Chihiro herself couldn't place her newfound desire to prove that although she was human, she could reach a state where even the gods couldn't complain.  All her lovely mind had to work with was the glimmer of glassy emerald and a soaring sensation._

        _Emerald._  Like Nigihayami's eyes._  Chihiro froze, realizing what traitorous thought had found its way into her mind.  No matter how hard she tried, there was no avoiding the matter, or rather, no avoiding the boy.  Within a week, she had reached a clear-minded decision.  She would simply oust Nigihayami from his spot as number one, take it for herself and finally be rid of the annoying little voice in the back of her head.  However, this was most assuredly easier said – or thought – than done._

        And so, Chihiro found herself sitting in a rather rigid desk, trying her hardest not to look back at a green eyed boy behind her.  _Of course, trying so hard not to look at him has probably already tipped him off that I'm avoiding him.  Dang.  I can either look away and look guilty, or look at him and remove all doubt.  She mutely noted the change of subjects, from Trigonometry to English.  __Wait, why do I** have to be the guilty one?  Augh!  She willed her sweat glands to shrivel up lest a few glistening beads evidence her mind's toil.  **__There's no proof that he saw me nearly fall over.  And besides, who does he think he's intimidating with that 'I'm going to stare at you with a blank face' look?  There's no reason for me to back down, I will succeed in defeating him and retrieving my lost position!_

        "Onigo-san."

        "Yes, sir!"  Chihiro stood up abruptly as she replied.

        "Can you tell Kyaki-san why this piece is characteristic of Shakespeare?"

        "Yes, teacher!  The rhyming scheme of iambic pentameter and the overflow of emotional motives are both characteristic of William Shakespeare."

        "Well done, Onigo-san.  I do hope the rest of you noted her answer down.  You might just find yourself in need of that information come exam day.  You may take your seat, Onigo-san."

        In the scratching of various writing utensils, Chihiro decided to undertake the risky venture of glancing back at Nigihayami.  There were no better circumstances to see the look on his face.  She'd just have to smile at him and surely he'd think that whatever drowsiness he'd seen before was all in his imagination…if he had one.  Under the pretense of reaching down to tuck her Trigonometry book back into her satchel, she peered through wisps of coffee colored hair to see that her archrival was…gazing out the window?!

        Chihiro's eye gave an involuntary twitch of annoyance.  All the careful last minute planning, the effort of turning around and the risk of being caught and he was looking out into the schoolyard?  What could possibly be that interesting out there?  Trees, grass, animals, dirt, and the gym class.  _Oh.  That might be it.  Though why he would want to watch less-talented players than himself eludes me.  Chihiro made a mental note to give herself a mental slap later.  _I am not complimenting him.  I'm simply…stating facts.  It's well known knowledge that he's a good athlete!_  She amended her mental note to two mental slaps.  __Now I'm defending myself against myself.  This boy is so frustrating._

        Through her continued attempts to keep her guard up against the frightening influence of Nigihayami, she noted dully that there were only ten minutes left until noon and that sometime during her battle with her mind, English had been replaced with World History.  Thanking the first god that came to her mind (a radish-god) that she hadn't been unexpectedly called upon, she refocused on the lesson.  _Ah, the media and its relationship with the government in __America__.  This is simple.  Pick me!  Pick me!  Let me finish Nigihayami off!_

        "Nigihayami-san."  _No!  I wanted to be the one to finish him._

"Yes, sir."  _Ahh__, just look at him.__  He doesn't even seem worried about the question.  What a show off, at least I have a teeny bit more of a cover.  Ok, so I'm probably just as bad, but that doesn't mean he's allowed to excel.  He's supposed to stagnate while I pass him victoriously!_

"Can you tell us why modern American media feels no obligation to cover for the government, indeed, why it may take steps to unravel the government's cover-ups?"  _Aw, and I know the answer perfectly.  Just my luck.  Mr. Perfect is going to get this easily._

"Yes, professor.  In the past, most notably during President Kennedy, the media was happy to portray the government in a favorable light to the people.  But during the Vietnam War, President Johnson's lies outraged the public and betrayed the media.  They felt used and offended and ever since, have become the watchdogs of the political scene.  In modern society, no one politician is immune from a scathing denunciation in a media format, just as no one man or woman is guaranteed support nationwide.  The media no longer caters to the government, but to the American people."  _I knew it._

        "Very well done, Nigihayami-san!"  _Yes, yes, shall we get on with it?  "You are obviously well versed in today's lesson."  __Small cough.__  As are other people.  "It's no wonder that you're top of the class."  __Ouch, that was a low blow.  Totally below the belt!  "I hope the rest of you will take a leaf out of Nigihayami-san's book and study the next lesson."  __Shall we start distributing little fliers to vote Nigihayami for deputy God or something?  Perhaps we should give him a field or a tree or a river or something to rule over in light of his obvious perfection.  Hmm, maybe the river, he's always cool, like water.  Oops.  That's three mental slaps._

        Her mental reproach was interrupted by the loud yell of the school bell.  Class was out for the rest of the day.  _Blessed be the spirit that came up with half days on Wednesday and Saturday!_

        "Class is dismissed."

        "Thank you, sir," was the return chorus of dismembered voices.  The older man bowed stiffly and walked out of the room, in which the level of noise grew progressively louder with his every step.

        "Ahh, the weekend!  What're you planning on doing, Sayagi-san?"

        "Oi, Miya-chan, you're coming to our football game this evening, right?"

        "Ok, who's the wise guy who stole my lunch?"

        Grinning slightly in spite of herself, Chihiro calmly packed her bag.  A month into the year, her class had finally realized that Nigihayami was not the only resident with half a brain.  Since then, Chihiro usually had at least one request for tutoring every day after class, but on Saturdays, no one wanted to spend the day in their stuffy room.  She would be able to go home and perhaps, if she was lucky, her mother would make her some Umeboshi!  Oh, how she loved the rice balls with the small bit of plum on the back.

        Her happy picture of strolling through vast field of Umeboshi (all screaming "Eat me, Chihiro-sama!") was interrupted when a hand placed itself lightly on the edge of her desk.  Still in a good mood, Chihiro followed the hand to the arm and then up to the head, where her high spirits promptly vanished.

        She forced a smile onto her face, "Nigihayami-san.  That was a very nice answer about the American media."  Chihiro was proud of the fact that she managed to state this without sarcasm.  "Not that anyone could expect anything less from you."  _4 mental slaps.__ She was no longer proud of the lack of sarcasm in her voice._

        "Onigo-san." Nigihayami's deep emerald eyes seemed to be full of concern.  "You really should be more careful.  Not having enough proper rest can be very bad for your health."

        "Er, yes, I suppose…" but Chihiro didn't even have time to get her answer out.  Nigihayami had already turned around and walked over to where a few of his fellow football players were waiting.  One was already hitting the black and white ball on his knee in anticipation.

        Chihiro was stunned.  Sure it was wonderful that he hadn't noticed that her up close encounter with her desk was due to her lack of interest in the lesson, but was that concern that she had heard in his voice?  _Hmm._  Either he was sincere or I need to add a fifth mental slap to my list. _ She weighed the two options.  _Mental slap._  Chihiro shook her head in a vein attempt to clear out the annoying little voice in the back that kept inserting very un-Chihiro-like comments into her consciousness._

        Smiling, she let herself be entered into one of the conversations the remaining females had going.  Football again.  Yamato Miya, the girl whose name had been yelled out across the room, was trying to recruit the others to come to the football game with her.  She was obviously flustered by the sudden invitation and what better way was there to regain lost footing than by inviting friends of her own to go along with her?

        "Come on, you guys.  It'll be fun!  Our team always wins, true, but think of all the nice bodies you'll see running in front of you! Mizuno-kun, Tenoh-kun, Hayasaki-kun, Nigihayami-kun…"

        Miya had hit the jackpot.  Chihiro noted that she wasn't the only one who had realized that Nigihayami had not only had a working brain, but a well sculpted body.  _Six slaps._  The girls had begun to compare stories about how wonderfully nice Nigihayami-kun had been towards them.  Chihiro was only too happy to stay out of the conversation, recalling Nigihayami's words to her just moments ago.

        "Ohhh, but I think Chihiro-chan's holding out on us!"

        "Ehh?  I have no idea what you're talking about, Sora-chan."

        "Oh come one, Chihiro-chan.  It's no fun if you keep things to yourself!"

        "Satsu-chan's right.  Or maybe," The girls leaned in as Miya paused dramatically, "you're hiding something because it's personal?  Or embarrassing?  Or evidence that you and Nigihayami-kun are having a secret love affair!"

        Chihiro was glad she hadn't had anything solid in her mouth, for she surely would have choked to her death.  As it was, she choked on the air itself, suddenly deciding that death wasn't the worst option if the discussion continued in its present direction.

        "Ah, Miya-chan, it seems like you've struck the nail right on the head!  It's almost poetic.  Boy loves girl, girl loves boy, girl keeps love from girlfriends."  The girls, minus the girl in question, let out a short burst of laughter.

        "I have no idea what you all are going on about."  Chihiro declared with a feigned air of disinterest that everyone saw through.  _Addendum to memo: practice feigning air of disinterest._

        "Chihiro-chan, we all saw Nigihayami-kun stop by at your desk on his way out."

        "Yeah, maybe he was whispering sweet nothings in your ear-"

        "-Or maybe he was simply commenting on my Shakespeare answer?"  Chihiro put in hopefully.  The girls appraised it.

        "Nah."

        "Oh, come on now.  There's nothing between us, honestly."

        "Is that so?"  Miya's eyes developed a peculiarly sharp glint.  Chihiro didn't think the future was looking very bright.  "Then you wouldn't mind proving that to us?"  Now Chihiro was sure that her patron Radish God had deserted her to this pack of she-wolves.  Maybe he had been eaten.  Chihiro made a mental note to choose a less edible God to pray to next time.

        "And how exactly, pray tell, would I accomplish that?"  She knew it was a mistake before it left her mouth, but in the back of her head, the little voice had asked if they hadn't had a valid point.  _Am I up to six or seven?  Seven, I think._

        "Simple."  Miya's mouth formed itself into a delectably evil grin.  "By accompanying me – and the rest of the girls – to tonight's football game.  If there really isn't anything between you two, Nigihayami-kun won't single you out to talk to.  If there is some secret business between you two..."  She left off, suggestively.

        "-we won't take your and Nigihayami-kun's absence too harshly."  Sora filled in with a laugh.

        Chihiro felt a newfound connection between herself and a simple hare, deceived by a sly fox.  _Class A.  Class A.  Miya's in Class A!  Of course she would use a devious scheme to get us to accompany her to the football game!  Argh, when did I become so gullible?!_

Realizing that the group- and a few other girls who had drifted over at the mention of Nigihayami – was waiting for her answer she plastered the most helpless look she could muster on her face and said, "I don't really have much of a choice, now do I, Miya-chan?"

        Miya grinned.  _Nope.  There's no chance I'm coming out of this one unscathed.  If only he hadn't felt the need to waltz over and talk to me after class!  Now I have to go spend my evening watching him and the rest of the team run around in circles.  A memory of Nigihayami's skill on the field popped into her mind.  _Wind blowing his hair, sweat glistening on his godlike brow, and me there to watch him as he falls!  _She inwardly smirked.  _No eighth slap for me!__

**Author's Addendum:  Yeah, Chihiro came off as a bit harsh in the beginning, but that doesn't necessarily mean that she's lacking some good qualities.   I shan't say anymore lest I give too much away.  I have no idea when another chapter will be out.  To be honest, I have no idea where I've steered myself (I think my patron Duckie God got squashed or something.)  I guess it'll all depend on the reactions to this slightly different way of portraying Chihiro and Haku (Yes, he _is_ Nigihayami.)  I bid you farewell, loyal readers, until we meet in the next episode of the saga of Changes.**


	2. To Sightings and Saturdays

**Changes**: _To a Prelude and Sighting_

**Disclaimer: (Somehow, this got eaten on the last chapter. I hope this one makes it through intact.) I do not own Spirited Away; it belongs to ****Miyazaki**** and his lawyers. Two of the scenes in the first chapter were based off of ones that can be found in KareKano and the general idea for this story came forth from the books, however, in no way is this fictional piece going to follow the KareKano storyline. It is expressly a Spirited Away story and shall stay as such. KareKano hints may be present later (doubtful) but as future chapters haven't been written yet, I shall not cut off potential circumstances (excuse the pun).**

"I'm home!" Chihiro flipped her shoes off roughly. Without bothering to straighten them, she bounded to the stairs, intent on changing out of her school uniform. It was already 1; she had managed to while away an hour with the girls. It wasn't that the girls from 3-A were…ok, well, they were quite a bit chatty. It wasn't hard to picture their future as town gossips, albeit, brainy town gossips.

"Tutoring again, Chihiro, honey?" Her mother's disembodied voice floated through the air. But even as her ears heard the next few words, Chihiro's nose alerted her stomach, which growled in ill-concealed anticipation. "I made some of your favorite Umeboshi for lunch. Why don't you come down and have some?"

_Curses._ Chihiro was torn. She glanced at the stairwell ahead of her. She sniffed the air around her and brought her eyebrows together in frustration. _Umeboshi or Nigihayami._ Why had the questions on tests never seemed this hard? _Plum__ flavored rice or football boy wonder? _She wished that there was some formula or philosophical saying to get her out of this pickle.

_Mmm, pickle. Pickled plum. Umeboshi. _She groaned. _All I need is a nice little quote. "Confucius says: when in pickle between boy and food, choose food, for it shall satiate the growling monster within." Oh, but wait. Confucius never had to deal with social pressure, did he?_ Chihiro growled lowly. _Must have been good to know the Emperor. If anything goes wrong – Off with his 'ead. Off with his pretty faced, dark-haired, flawlessly created head for taking her Umeboshi from her._

"No tutoring, just chatting. Thanks for the offer of food, but I'm meeting the girls at the football game soon, so I really need to change and get there." Chihiro nearly wept as the earlier image of a field of prancing Umeboshi (still crying "Eat me, Chihiro-sama") suddenly stopped their antics to dance into Nigihayami's laughing mouth. _Noooo. Not the Umeboshi! You'll pay for this Nigihayami, you'll paaaayyy!_

Realizing that she was performing a death clutch on the innocent banister, she released her white-knuckled grip and forced her lead feet up the stairs, the sweet smell of victory dissipating. _Refocus. Need to establish plan of action. Need to foil any ill-begotten rumors. Need to punish Nigihayami in the name of love, peace and Umeboshi. No, wait. Scratch that last one. Only in name of Umeboshi._

Chihiro wrenched the door to her room open. Dropping the iron weight of her book bag on the floor, she proceeded steadily to the closet. She weighed her options. _A. Dress clubby. Attract attention of any boy but Nigihayami. Rumor gone; many appear in its place. Be grounded for months by parents upon return home. Also at risk of catching severe case of cold._

She ruled that plan out. _B. Dress very conservatively. Wear pants and long sleeves. Layers. Wear layers of everything, including pants and sweaters. Appear as large ball of clothes. Frighten all boys (including one the question) away due to the sheer harm done to reputation by being seen in her state of dress. Downside: own reputation dashed to shreds. Endure ridicule for eons to come. Do many loads of laundry during the remaining portion of the weekend._

Her pride stamped that plan into the ground. _C. Dress nicely. Dress very nicely. Look stunning. Attract attention of all guys around. Seduce Nigihayami. Dispel rumor by making it be truth. Date Nigihayami; marry, have twelve kids and a house on the rive-_ She stopped, mid-thought, and mentally slapped herself. _Chihiro to brain, Chihiro to brain. Urgent update: Nigihayami equates enemy. Chihiro, over._

She sighed. This was madness. _Plan D. Dress respectably. Enough to impress, but not eye-catching. Want reputation of being demure, not deranged. Said rumor is obviously false and as such, there is nothing to prove. Act normal and assume he will do the same._ Chihiro smiled at the shirt she was fingering. _See, now was that so hard? _Chihiro's smile froze in place. Who was she talking to again?

Finally deciding on a short, pink-flower pattern skirt and a matching knit top, she turned to put them on her desk, only to find that other articles were already scattered across the surface. Promising (again) that she would clean the desk up later, she tossed her outfit lightly onto the half made bed. Chihiro wasn't a slob, but she did have the human tendency to delay things to the very last moment possible when it came to cleaning. Glad that her mother had not been in to collect the laundry (Chihiro would have heard a lecture by now if she had come), Chihiro stripped off her school uniform top and laid it over the back of her chair.

She walked over to the adjoining bath and proceeded to tie her hair back and wash her face. After a few minutes of groping around blindly while dripping water on the floor, she found a towel to dry her face off with. She pulled off her skirt and laid it on the bed in exchange for the previously chosen pink one. She then pulled the sleeveless top over her head and adjusted the turtleneck collar. Glancing at her bed, the small nagging voice in the back of her mind got the better of her. She fixed the sheets and drew the comforter up higher. She also moved the skirt to lie on top of her uniform top, which was on top of a black shirt, which was on top of khaki shorts, which was…and so on and so forth.

Chihiro took a hard look at the chair and decided that today was not a good day to duel with it. After all, she had been outgunned by Miya earlier and she didn't know if she could take being outdone by her desk chair. Shaking her hair down, she walked back into the bathroom. She brushed the slightly frizzy mass of dark chocolate brown a few times and scowled. Reaching into a lower cabinet, she applied generous amounts of mousse to _persuade_ her hair to lay flat. That being done, she applied her usual regiment of makeup.

Chihiro had long ago overcome her distaste for makeup. After grueling hours of flipping through the torture known as "Teen Fashion Magazines," she had finally been successful in learning the proper application of various articles of makeup. It was also around this time that Chihiro realized that less was more. _Ah, yes. I went down with just a tad bit too much color._ She had some not quite fond memories of her mother shrieking, dropping some china and collapsing into a heap, moaning that her sweet daughter had decided to sell herself on street corners. She had had a very nice talk with her father when he arrived home that evening.

After foundation, a few layers of power and eyeliner, she opted for simple cherry-vanilla lip gloss. _Well, aside from the fact that I could out-pink a Powerpuff girl in a duel of clothes, I think I'm ready to go._

She grabbed a small, woven purse on her way out of her room and fairly ran down the stairs. She then proceeded to nonverbally curse and run back up the stairs to retrieve her watch. Proceeding down the stairs again, she skidded to a halt in front of the dreaded shoe closet. Chihiro and her mother managed to share shoes, as their feet were very similar in size (Chihiro's feet were a half size bigger, but she would rather have lost a chunk of her heel than lose access to her mother's shoe collection by admitting this). The closet was the home of said collection. It was their fortress and they did not take very kindly to being disturbed or ousted from their cozy darkness.

Taking a deep breath, she prayed to her Radish God. She prayed that she would be able to find her (mother's) wooden sandals. She prayed that she would be able to walk without falling in above mentioned wooden sandals. She prayed that her Radish God had not, in fact, been eaten because she really hoped her first two prayers would work out.

Wrenching the door open and plunging headfirst into the not-so-orderly arrangement of shoes, she let out a fierce battle cry, not unlike that of a wet doll being trodden upon. She followed up with a cry of success, well, it was more of a cackle of success (ohohoho!). Tossing one of the wooden sandals over her shoulder, she pawed her way through the rest of the pile. _It has to be here somewhere. C'mere little shoesie, come here. Mama Chihiro has big plans for you. Don't you want to come out and play with your mate? Leftie was a good little asexual inanimate object. S/ He came out to play already; don't you want to join us?_ It was probably not in the best of mental states that Chihiro found dear old "Rightie."

Shoving her feet roughly into the pair, she called out a hurried goodbye to her mother. "Bye mum. Going to the football game. Took your shoes. Back for dinner!" She tapped her foot three times for good luck and opened the door to leave.

"Are you sure you don't want to take some Umeboshi with you, dear? And do try to keep the shoes in good order, will you?"

"No time. No guarantees on the shoes though. Bye!" Chihiro scurried out the door, closing it quickly on her mother's reply to her retort.

Chihiro let out a sigh as she set off down the small hill that she lived on. The walk back to the school was conveniently downhill all the way, but at the moment, she wanted to dawdle as long as possible. Glancing at her watch, she figured that she had around ten minutes to meet the girls at the game. The match proper wouldn't be starting until three o'clock, a half hour later, but if nothing else, the girls could ogle (or heckle) the players during warm-ups.

A light breeze rustled her hair as she quickened her pace. _I can't very well have a reputation for being late, now can I? Besides, they'll be reading into my every move, trying to disprove whatever I say or do. If I'm late, they'll think it's because I'm either too afraid to prove myself or that I'm off in some dark enclave with Nigihayami._ A vision of the second option formulated itself in her mind. She couldn't help but think that even in a stress-induced daydream, they _did_ make a good couple. _No, no, bad couple. We'd bicker like old people; we'd claw each other's eyes out; we'd become recluses. _Well, considering the ramifications of her friends being proven right included unabated taunting, becoming a recluse wasn't such a terrible option. _At least the view would be good._ She mentally slapped herself.

"Chihiro-chan!"

Still reeling slightly from her psychic blow, she looked up to see her friends assembled at the gate of the football field. From the sounds drifting over, they weren't the only ones planning to get there early for good seats. Hurrying on up, she greeted the four girls in turn. "Shall we go on in then?"

"Aww, Chihiro-chan is eager to see her boyfriend on the field!"

"Aww, maybe Miya-chan is sad that no one's come for a good-luck kiss yet?" Chihiro's voice dripped with amused sarcasm. If she was going to be accused of having an affair, she wasn't going to face them all alone!

"Gah, Chihiro-chan, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about…" Miya's face went red as the group laughed at her obvious discomfort. "Though we probably should get inside soon; I went in early and saved us all seats."

"Ohh, it looks like Chihiro-chan isn't the only one anxious to get it, ne?" Sora commented with a knowing look toward Satsu.

"You're both dreaming." Chihiro breezed past them with a strained smile. The other followed in her wake. Chihiro paused when she got to the front. "Where exactly did you save us seats, Miya-chan?"

Miya's face regained a pink tinge. "Uh, well, I came a little earlier and kept us some seats up front." She waved vaguely over at the nearly full first bench. In the middle was space for about 5 people, kept open by the presence of none other than the team's lowest level of assistant manager.

"About time you girls got in here. I have places to be already!" And with that pompous display of annoyance, he walked off towards the locker room.

"Ohoho, someone's definitely giving Miya-chan VIP treatment."

"Yeah, maybe I was wrong; Miya-chan did get to give Hayori-kun a good-luck kiss."

"And then some, to get these seats!"

"HEY!" The girls laughed as they sat down. The bleachers were already mostly filled on the home side, but the visiting team – and their cheering section – had yet to arrive.

"Maybe we were wrong; it's Miya-chan's disappearance that we should be ready for, not Chihiro-chan!" Satsu smirked while Miya feigned deaf. _Yes, this is perfect! Focus on Miya and no will know about me and Nigihayami. Er- that is, no one will know that there is nothing between me and Nigihayami. Oh my poor brain is reeling._

Chihiro listened to the playful banter of her friends for a little while longer until she was distracted by the sound of a motor. The visiting team, Yaboroshi High School, descended the steps of the first bus. A crowd of rabid, waving fangirls descended from the second bus, not unlike a plague of locusts o'er the land. If Chihiro had any doubts about her flimsy intentions to watch the game, she was comforted by the thought that the entire visiting section was more concerned with the opposite sex than the opposite score.

The guys set down their water and equipment bags on the bench in front of their bleachers. Their crisp, blue and red uniforms had obviously just been laundered. _Pity. Seems like it's going to be a waste of good laundry detergent. Somehow, I don't think those shirts are going to stay on much longer past the game._

"Oh, look, there comes our team!" Chihiro looked over at the cry. True to form, their boys were walking out in their own uniforms. As the home team, they were wearing mostly white, with highlights of green. Chihiro was perturbed. She leaned over to the left, towards Satsu.

"Aren't our school colors blue and white, not green?"

"Oh, yeah, well, the football program originally started out separately from the school and they chose the colors white and green to be theirs. When they became officially part of the school, they decided to keep their old uniforms rather than shell out more money simply for the sake of color."

"It's better this way, ne, Miya-chan? If it starts to rain, the uniforms become fairly see-through, including Hayori-kun's!" Sora seemed intent on harassing Miya, a mindset that Chihiro was not totally unhappy with.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Sora-chan, but it's not like it's going to rain."

Sora looked triumphant and pointed back towards Chihiro's house. The faintest wisps of trouble seemed to be gathering ominously. Chihiro laughed at Miya's expression. It was somewhere between wary, disappointed and elated. Chihiro wished she had thought to bring her camera. _Get a picture of a wet Nigihayami? _She froze, blankly staring at the visiting team's warm-up drill. _I did not just say that. I did **not** just say that. I'm imagining things. Of course, that implies that I'm imagining Nigihayami wet…I did not just say **that**. This whole conversation with myself never existed._

Chihiro was beginning to worry. She watched as Hayori waved and grinned at Miya during the home team's warm-ups. She wasn't sure if she had really seen Nigihayami look over at her – he could have been looking over at the girl Hayori had just waved at (Miya), but Chihiro felt the oddest sensation that he was looking at her. Rather than bring up another mental debate, or worse, respark Sora's enthusiasm about an affair between herself and Nigihayami, she pointed out that many of the opposing fangirls were ogling the home team.

"Aww, is Chihiro jealous that the nasty fangirls are watching her boyfriend?" Chihiro congratulated herself on managing exactly what she hadn't wanted to do.

"Whatever you say, Sora-chan. Though, if you're asking my opinion, you seem to be watching him more than I am."

"True, but he doesn't keep looking over at me."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Really?" Sora grinned. "You're trying to tell me that you, Chihiro-sama, masterful and merciful goddess of Class 3-A did not see Nigihayami-sama, wonderful and well-built god of Class 3-A look over at you on three separate occasions?"

"…" Chihiro's blank look was apparently cause for laughter because her four supposed friends were happily battling severe cases of the giggles. "Whatever you say, the game's starting now. Maybe you'd like to insert your eyes back into their sockets?" Chihiro turned back towards the field more perplexed than ever. _Then, I didn't imagine him looking over at me? But there's just no logical reason. He **had** to have been looking over at Miya, it's the only sensible explanation._

Her attention was broken as a sharp whistle sliced through the air. Almost immediately afterwards, one of the two boys at the center broke free, the ball ahead of him. Chihiro watched him skillfully weave around the defenders. He passed the ball to another boy, who had been slightly behind him. Although the boy with the ball (Mizuno, of class 2) had veered closer to the home side of the field, the original boy darted towards the visiting side. Chihiro watched as he set himself behind a defender, seemingly blocked from performing any effective maneuvers. Mizuno passed the ball backwards again, to Hayori. Hayori did a bit of fancy footwork and then gave the ball a hard kick towards the visiting goal. Out of nowhere, Mizuno appeared, kicking the ball sharply towards the incapacitated Yokto High player.

In a sweeping move, the player moved out from behind the defender, who lost his footing and slid to meet the turn more intimately. The free player now kicked the ball at a still sharper angle, knocking it into the far most corner of the goal, away from the goalkeeper. Yokto's crowd erupted in cheers. Fifteen minutes into the game and their team had already scored. The central kicker was mobbed by his teammates. As the mass of male bodies finally gave up their grasp, he ran back in front of the goal, nearing himself to his cheering supporters, grinning. In almost slow motion, Chihiro saw him lift his head up and look directly into her eyes.

It was Nigihayami.

**Author's Addendum: Well, that concludes this chapter of Changes. Tune in for the next chapter ("To Memos and Meetings") to see if Chihiro can dig herself out of the grave she's presently in. Will we finally find out Nigihayami's intentions? Will Chihiro discover the true fate of her Radish God? Will Chihiro be sent to an asylum for the mentally unstable? Review, and check back once we've reached 30 for a new episode. Criticism, compliments and tactful comments are appreciated, and will be cited in the next installment's Reviewer's Corner.**


	3. To Memos and Meetings

**Changes:**_To Memos and Meetings_

**Disclaimer: All characters used are owned by ****Miyazaki**** or myself. I'll leave it to the readers – and lawyers – out there to decipher which belong to who. No Umeboshi were hurt in the making of this chapter.**

He was looking at her.

Nigihayami Kohaku was looking at her. There was no doubt about it. And furthermore, Chihiro found herself staring back. His grass colored eyes were fixed, unmoving, on her own even as he ran his victory lap. Chihiro watched him as passed directly in front of her, he opened his mouth as if to say something, but the crowd's roar drowned out what sound he made. He gave an almost apologetic smile to the crowd – no, to _her_ – before jogging back to center field.

Chihiro felt Miya nudge her in the side. "Did you catch what he said?"

Chihiro would have really liked to have replied "No, but my spider-sense tells me that I should run. Now." Instead, she shook her head and as calmly as possible, replied, "Eh, it didn't look like he was saying anything in particular. Just calling out into the crowd, that's all." _I think. I hope. I think I hope…no wait…_

Miya gave Chihiro a severe look. "I don't know how you can be so stupid when you're so smart."

"It's funny how often people hear that combination. Almost as often as 'this is either genius or madness.'" Chihiro replied breezily.

"You know, if I didn't know better, I would say that Nigihayami likes you and that he was trying to say something to you just now." _Eek, so it wasn't my imagination? First he's looking at me, and now he's talking to me in a public place? What's the world coming to?_

"Ah, then it's a good thing you know better, isn't it?"

"Real funny. Though I guess you can be so nonchalant 'cause you're already having a secret affair with Nigihayami."

"Yes, I'm having his baby. Weren't you invited to the shower?"

"BABY? What baby!" Sora and Satsu had finally torn their eyes from the game to hear the worst possible part of Chihiro's conversation. As their attention was split between the gorgeous bodies still darting around the field and the two girls next to them, they had obviously not caught Chihiro's sarcasm.

"No baby! No baby!" Chihiro responded a little too quickly.

"Ah, so there must have been an affair, for Chihiro to be carrying Nigihayami's baby." _Oh gods no._

"Do you think they're married in secret?" _I'm 16!_

"Do you think it's a boy?" _Ack__, there is no baby! Get it straight!_

"Maybe the relationship went sour after that one night stand?" _Geez__, I'm not that hopeless with relationships, after all, I haven't left your harassment, have I?_  
"Would he be as handsome as his daddy?" _There is no baby, and therefore, there is no daddy. And if there was a daddy, no one's going to be watching him closely enough to call him handsome but me! _Chihiro realized what she'd just thought. Blasphemous thoughts were surfacing again. It was all Nigihayami's fault. Why did he always have to draw attention to her?

"No! There is no baby! There is no daddy! There is no sour relationship!"

"Ah, so the relationship is healthy and strong?"

"Ye-wait. No. It's nonexistent!"

"Dang, I thought I'd gotten you to admit it for a moment." Sora sighed theatrically and shook her head.

"Can we please just go back to watching the game?"

"Oh, want to ogle your man a bit more?"

"He's not my man, and I think Hayori-kun's looking over at us…"

"WHAT? Where?"

"Heh, now who's the one with a strong, healthy relationship?" Chihiro chucked at the glare Miya leveled at her. She was about to refocus her attention back on the game when she felt a drop of moisture fall on her face. She froze in place for a moment and then looked upwards.

The sky was ominous. It had been growing darker over the duration of the game as the cloud bank had drifted over to watch the action on the field – and perhaps, to hear the argument in the stands. Chihiro's eyebrows knit together as she processed this. _Rain. Games only get rained out if there's lightning and thunder. _She gave an involuntary little shiver at the thought of thunder. _Rain on the field and streets equates mud. Mud means ruined shoes. Ruined shoes…angry mother…oh dear._

"Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"Did you hear that?"

"Uh-oh." Apparently, Chihiro's companions had discovered the present state of the sky. Even darker than before, the clouds began to rumble their displeasure. _Then again, if mum kills me, I don't have to worry about the whole Nigihayami affair – or lack there of. Though, with my luck, people would probably concoct some story of my mother's swelling anger at my secret marriage that led to her committing homicide. I wonder if Nigihayami would put flowers on my grave or if the rumor would instill so much worry into him that he wouldn't go to the funeral for fear of mother. Not that I'd especially want him at my funeral,_ she added hastily, trying to convince herself that he wasn't important.

"D'you think they'll cancel the-" Satsu's comment was cutoff by the torrential downpour that suddenly let loose from the heavens. She let out a muffled shriek of indignation that was not heard over the earth-quaking peals of thunder. _Aaaugh__. Thunder! Everyone duck and cover!_

"There's no lightning! They can't cancel the game yet!" A thoroughly soaked Miya was trying to see the antics of the football players through a curtain of harsh rain. Chihiro, also wetter than a goldfish's bowl, contented herself by squeezing her eyes shut and fixing her death grip on the edge of her seat. The crowd was beginning to leave in search of shelter; the stands were chaos. "It's only a little bit of rain! I'm sure it'll clear up soon. Why don't you all just sit back down?" Miya's attempt to dissuade the fleeing people was in vain for even as she said it, a brilliant flash of light lit the gloomy skies. Forking its way from the stratosphere, the almighty canceller of games touched down to Earth, setting off an even larger burst of a thunderous roar. _Eeeek__, getting closer! Flee! Must flee like rats deserting a sinking ship! Must also find less cowardly analogy!_

"Maybe we should take cover?" Sora-chan had given up trying to wipe her face off. Her sleeve was so wet that it only made the situation worse. Glancing over at the nearly empty seats behind them, Chihiro guessed that they were the last people left on the Home side of the stands.

"Yeah, maybe we should go. I mean, the game's probably cancelled, and even if it isn't, it's not like we can see anything…" Chihiro tried to keep her voice from cracking as another slap of thunder struck the surrounding air. Her voice only went up one octave.

Even Miya looked dismayed. "I guess we can go find somewhere else to watch from." She stood up slowly, as if by going at a snail's pace would cause the bad conditions to miraculously lift. She didn't get her miracle, but something arguably much better.

"Miya-chan!" _Oho, maybe's there's more to tease Miya about than I thought…_

"Yo-kun?" _Already making up nicknames? Miya you little min- auugh. What did I do to deserve this weather? May you fall down a thousand flights of stairs, Nigihayami! It's all your fault that I'm marinating in this slightly acidic waterfall!_

"Oh, hey Ogino-san, Masahitu-san, Yana-san." Hayori seemed a bit put off by their presence for a moment, but regained his footing. "The players have to go for the end-of-game talk, but could you wait for me at the school entrance, Miya-chan?" Maybe it was hypothermia, but Chihiro thought she saw a blush grace not only Miya's cheek, but also Hayori's.

"Oh, um, sure! I'll be waiting, then. Good luck, I hope the coach isn't too mad." Miya waved him off. Chihiro noted that Miya's eyes lingered on Hayori's chest, which was quite visible through the waterlogged white fabric that served as their uniform. _Hmm, soccer players seem to have nice muscles. _An image of Nigihayami without a shirt – or, more accurately, with a rain-drenched see-through shirt appeared before her mind's eye.

_"Oh, Ogino-san! I know it's terrible weather, but could you meet me at the equipment shed in about ten minutes? The players have to go get an ending pep talk, but I'd like to talk to you afterwards, if possible, that is." Image-Nigihayami nodded his head three times in the directions of each of her friends in way of greeting. "Can I count on seeing you, then?"_

_ "Oh, of course. No worries, I'll be there." Her image-self smiled a little too brightly for her tastes as image-Nigihayami broke into a dashing – and dripping – grin._

_No, of course I wouldn't mind meeting you alone in this terrible storm…er, wait. _Chihiro began to replay the events in her mind when some extra voices began to appear.

"Oh, I guess both Miya-chan and Chihiro-chan are deserting us for their lovers, eh, Sora-chan?" _Oh Radish-Gods no. There was no way. Somewhere under the shocked shell of her exterior, Chihiro made a mental note to check her mind's eye. Apparently it was mis-wired to her real eyes._

"Yeah, we really need to find guys for ourselves soon, or risk being left out of things." Sora stuck her tongue out playfully at her friends. _That couldn't have just…I thought I was…what was he thinking! _Simply walking up to her at the end of the game and asking to meet her in private! Didn't he know what rumors were at stake? Didn't herealize what stories would be confirmed – or disconfirmed, in her case. What would possess him to pull such a stunt? This was not a part of the plan! He was not supposed to notice her at all! _Maybe he didn't get the memo about Plan D? _Squashing that thought as if it were a bug, she tried to regain her composure. _What if he got the memo about Plan C? _Horror ran down her spine before she realized what inane thoughts she was thinking. _There's no way he could have found out about Memo C. It's already been mentally shredded and incinerated._

In the meanwhile, Satsu and Sora laughingly called out goodbyes and told them that even though their clothes were wet, it wasn't a good enough excuse to take them off. Both Miya and Chihiro looked for something to throw at their retreating backs.

"Ah, no sense in staying here. It's freezing!" Miya wisely observed.

"Ahhh…are you going to the entrance already?"

"Of course. I wouldn't want to make him wait!"

"So you're really going to go?"

"Um, let me think about it for a minute." Miya mimed thinking hard. "Yes!" She grinned over her shoulder and saw the undecided face on Chihiro's face. "You're not actually going to stand him up, are you? You told him that you were going to meet him there! You have your word, your reputation and your honor to keep!"

Chihiro cringed as if she had just been sentenced to twenty years in prison with no chance of parole. _So much for getting out due to good behavior. _"But I wasn't really…I mean, I didn't really mean to, you know-"

Miya's face softened a bit. "Hey, forget the whole accusatory deal for now. Even if you two aren't an item now, this might be your chance."

"But don't want a chance to hook up with him!" Chihiro protested half heartedly. _Yeah, I want one hundred percent odds of hooking up! Er-wait. I want zero percent odds of not being an item now? Eh. Zero or a hundred, I seem to end up with him either way. Stupid logic, who needs it?_

"Yeah? Are you really sure about that? You two are perfect for each other and I've seen you glance over at him a few times before. Anyway, you gave your word, give it a shot. You don't know what he wants anyway; he might just want to know if Sora-chan is available."

Thus, standing at the front of the stands in bone chilling rain, Chihiro realized that she might not have given Miya all the credit she deserved. _I'm not sure if my observational abilities have rubbed off on her, or if she's been plotting this all along_. _And wait, what was that last crack?_ Wincing at another round of thunder, Chihiro snapped back "Why should I be expected to act as messenger girl for Nigihayami-kun? If he wants to date Sora-chan, he should simply ask her!" Chihiro stuck her chin into the air and pulled a face of indignation. Her pose was shattered five seconds later when she whimpered at the rolling booms.

"Hah, jealous already? And you say that you don't even want to date him!"

Chihiro looked around for a piece of trash to throw at her friend's head. Seizing a leftover napkin, she wadded it into a soppy ball and took aim. She was rewarded with a lovely squelching sound and a shriek of surprise. Miya whiled around to face her.

"Why you…" Miya seemed to think it better not to rise to Chihiro's playful rejoinder. "Was that because you know I'm right, or becausevery deep down inside of your core, you know I'm right?"

Chihiro scowled at her. "What, suddenly you're no longer worried about being late?"

"Oh my gosh, that's right! Have fun with Nigihayami-kun, Chihiro-chan." _Yes, that's right, 'have fun with the dragon, little innocent bunny-chan.'_ "Do try and keep your clothes on, as Sora-chan and Satsu-chan mentioned?" _Gah__. You have it all wrong. Really. We already went over the fact that I'm NOT carrying Nigihayami's baby…thought….no. Bad thoughts. Mustn't think bad thoughts. Nigihayami is the enemy. Must remember! _"Oh, and Chihiro?"

"Hmm?"

"Don't wait up." Miya grinned and streaked off towards the entrance. _She really IS a minx._ Finding that she'd rather stand in the shelter of the equipment shed than in the rain, Chihiro darted off towards the distant building. She had one small grievance for her shoes. _They served me well. May they rest in…mud._

She saw the equipment building appear out of thin air- or more appropriately, thick rain. Running into the protection of the overhanging, she glanced down at her lovely, damp timepiece. She still had a minute to spare. With any luck, Nigihayami would be late. With a lot of luck, Nigihayami wouldn't show.

"Ogino-san!"

"Nigihayami-kun! You're a bit early." _It figures that he'd be early. Damn his perfection._ She mentally slapped herself. _I really need to stop doing that. With this newly observant Miya-chan around, I need all my wits about me._

"Uh, I'm sorry about making you wait in the rain like this. It's not exactly a beautiful day." He smiled apologetically and Chihiro heard herself forgive him.

"It's hardly a problem at all. After all, this place has an awning overhead so we're out of the rain." _It's very much a problem! This place is secluded and cloistered from the public!_

"Yeah. Actually, I've been meaning to talk with you for a while now, but I just never found the right time to ask you if you had a minute. You always seem so busy, what with class work and tutoring and all." _You have? I do? Ehhh…if Miya-chan is right about this, I'll eat my Radish God._

"Really?" She gave a small laugh. "I didn't realize I was so unapproachable. I'm sorry about the trouble!" She glanced over at him. They were fairly close, if side-by-side and Chihiro couldn't help but notice that in the rain, the uniform did really become as clear as glass. But from the view she was getting, she wasn't about to complain. _Soccer players really are well built. Hmm._

"Oh no, it's nothing like that. It's really my fault." _Come on, get to the point. It's cold and I can still hear the thunder._ _Erk__, why can't this stupid storm simply stop? It's been bad enough luck already! _Chihiro's thoughts were cut off when she felt a pair of arms encircle her from behind. She gave a little start and looked about herself wildly. Looking up above her shoulder, she saw a radish-red Nigihayami.

"Uh, you were shivering?" He offered as way of explanation. "I would give you a sweater or my shirt-" Chihiro tried not to imagine herself in his shirt, which, of course, meant that she had a searingly clear mental image of Nigihayami shirtless. "-but with this rain, everything's just as wet as you are and it wouldn't be much help."

"Oh." _Oh. I'm standing in a dark enclave. Oh. I'm soaking wet. Oh. I'm in the arms of the most desirable guy in the class and all I can say is 'oh'? Oh, my._

"Uh-" Nigihayami's next words were cut off as the loudest yet roar of thunder pounded through the air. Chihiro decided to give up with image and seek solace and safety in the nearest form. _Rats have the right idea! _Whereas Chihiro had been slightly twisted before, she was now buried face first in Nigihayami's chest, clinging to his soggy jersey for dear life. The sound passed and Chihiro's senses began to return to her. _Oh, dear. _That phrase was being thought all too frequently.

She raised her head upwards slowly and found herself staring in the deep, forest green eyes of Nigihayami. Her hands were still resting lightly on his chest as his were around her waist. They were effectively pressed up against each other. She could feel his breath on her face; there was hardly more than a few centimeters between them and was it her imagination, or was that distance dwindling away?

**Author's Addendum:**

**Apologies for the delayed chapter. It would have been put off for longer, but I decided to write and post this in one sitting (hence, no pre-edits have occurred) as my birthday gift to you all. I'll be here promptly with the next chapter of Changes ("To Snags and Sundays") soon (….and no, I'm not trying to buy time for myself. Where would you get that idea?) **

**090403**


	4. To Snags and Sundays

**Changes: **_To Snags and Sundays_

**Disclaimer: All Spirited Away characters belong to ****Miyazaki**** and his lawyers. All unfamiliar characters belong to the author. Some Umeboshi were hospitalized in critical condition during the making of this chapter.**

**NOTE: This chapter's beginning (the resolution to the cliffhanger) was supplied by _Sakura Avalon or Kinomoto_. Further elaboration at the end. _Bobtheconsructionworker _should be thanked as well; without him, this chapter probably wouldn't be out for at least another week. Guilt does wonders.**

Was her overactive imagination playing tricks on her again? First, she had mistaken Nigihayami for a mirage (_yeah, that's right. A desert mirage in a thunderstorm)_, and now she was fantasizing about kissing him? _I wonder if Freud has any relevant theories on this. 'Fantasizing about archenemy is a sign that one has unlimited potential to defeat all obstacles.' I wish. With today's luck, Freud'll probably side with Murphy. 'If a situation with your nemesis can't get worse, you'll end up having his babies.' Erk. Babies, again?_ If it wasn't for the fact that her imagination had gotten her into this mess into the first place, Chihiro would have liked to see if the sky had turned purple and the grass red. _Oh wait. That's right – a thunderstorm. No sky-gazing in this weather. Just some good ol' smooching-aack. No. No giving in! Maintain front line of defenses!_

_Relative position? _Chihiro took a mental step backwards and evaluated her position as best she could. _In Nigihayami's arms. Head tilted upwards, arms against his chest, staring rather breathlessly into his eyes. Sounds like a harlequin romance novel. 'Ravish me now, my love!' err..yeah, maybe not._ Trying not to think of herself and Nigihayami as characters in an angst-ridden love-defeats-all story, Chihiro ran through her options in the fast dwindling time.

_Plan, what, am I on E now? Right, Plan E: Calmly let go of Nigihayami and step backwards. Act as if situation had never occurred. If neither of us acknowledges that a tree fell down in the forest, did it really fall down? If neither of us acknowledges this situation happened, did it really happen? _She paused and struck that plan out. _He's holding onto me! How's a girl supposed to escape when he's got such a firm grip?_ Somewhere deep within her head, Chihiro vaguely registered that she was probably the only girl who would try.

_Plan F, Plan F. I need a Plan F! _But Chihiro never got the chance to make Plan F, which might have saved her from her ordeal. During her intimate conversation with herself, the distance between her face and Nigihayami's had begun to shrink. Frozen in place, desperately attempting to formulate a Plan F, Chihiro could hardly afford to not take notice of Nigihayami's descent. _He wouldn't want to discuss Shakespeare, would he? Ehhh.._

"Chihir-OH!"

She was saved. In the worst possible situation. By the worst possible person. At possibly the worst possible time. _Strike that, at definitely the worst possible time._ Chihiro and Nigihayami's shocked expressions were both staring at Miya and Hayori's embarrassed ones. _This is not how it went in those romance novels…_

"Ahh, Miya-chan. Hayori-kun. We were, uh," Chihiro glanced down at Nigihayami's grip on her. He immediately released her as if she had suddenly become scalding hot. Judging from the heat radiating off of her face, Chihiro wouldn't have been surprised if she had burned his hands. She found herself a good ten feet apart from him in a matter of a second. _What was she supposed to say? 'We were just about to kiss, sealing our passionate love for each other forever?'_

"Yamato-san. Hayori-kun." _How does he maintain that exterior?_ Even while she stuttered her way through a murky explanation, Nigihayami showed only a slight blush and a clipped tone.

"…discussion the merits of Shakespeare?" She finished rather lamely and trying to make up for lost points with a winning smile. _Addendum to addendum: practice 'winning smile in face of utter ruin' alongside 'feigned disinterest'._

"Oh. Right, I'd forgotten that Shakespeare involved such intimate contact." Miya's eyes glinted with some unknown emotion that Chihiro just **knew** wouldn't be good for her. "Either way, we seemed to have disturbed you two…maybe we should just get going on our own…?" _NO! You can't! I can't! Actually, I can, and I probably would, which is why you can't!_

"Aa? Really? Disturbed? I had no idea. But Miya-chan, I should really be getting that mathematics book from you right away and you should probably change out of those wet clothes too. Maybe we'll just get going, hmm? Nigihayami-kun and I can continue our lovely philosophical discussion before class on Monday." Chihiro pasted a smile on her face and shot a look over at Nigihayami. _Memo D! Memo D! Think Memo D!_

"Mm, yeah. I should probably do inventory of the equipment. I almost forgot that it's my day to do it. Nice seeing you, Yamato-san…" _He seems to have clued on. Maybe this won't be so bad after all?_

"Yes, nice indeed, Nigihayami-kun." Miya seized Chihiro's arm and began to pull the still rather incoherent girl away from the awning. Said incoherent girl was attempting to choose whether it was best to stay with Nigihayami and have her brain malfunction or leave with Miya and have her brain picked apart in search of gossip.

"Ah, yes. Very nice, er, chat. I guess I'll be seeing you then, Nigihaya-" _Yes, this might just all work out. I just have to tell the truth and then Miya won't have anything to gossip about…_

"Kohaku." Chihiro normally prided herself on her ability to not to curse. _Shit._

"Kohaku-kun." A quick glance over at Miya showed that this little incident was certainly beyond repair. Suddenly remembering that there was still Hayori-kun to reckon with, Chihiro hazarded a glance in his direction as well. From the look on Hayori's face, the sun had just risen in the west and he'd found a pot of gold at the end of the resulting rainbow. _Oh shit. Nigiha-er, Kohaku got Memo C._

"Monday, then, On-" _Damn him. _She was trapped. She could either allow him use of her given name and make things look even more suspicious - if possible - or could ignore his setup and come off as rude. Oh, but he had planned it well. _Unforgivable!_

"Chihiro." She flashed him as much of a smile as she could still plaster up before tightening her grip on Miya's arm to vice-like strengths. "Bai Kohaku-kun, Hayori-kun." Steering Miya away from the boys, Chihiro backed away fairly rapidly before making an about-face. She made sure her gaze was directly forward and that there were no emotions on her face. She may have been sentenced to prison, but there was still time before she would be sent to the gallows.

If she got lucky, Miya would be stunned enough for Chihiro to make her escape. And then, Chihiro would have a nice twenty four hours left to live – assuming she didn't answer the phone or the door – before utter ruin took over her life.

She would always look back at this moment and wonder why, with her intelligence, she hadn't already thought to run. Maybe to America? They supposedly had a good 'Witness Protection Program,' whatever that was.

"Chihiro-chan." _Play it calm. Don't panic. Don't give any information out!_

"I don't know what you're talking about. There's nothing to this incident, you're really just overanalyzing it all." Yes. That was as cool, calm and reassured as a flaming marshmallow.

"My, but we're a bit defensive today, aren't we?" Chihiro gritted her teeth and kept walking at a brisk pace. She didn't trust her traitorous tongue. "Oh? No comments on anything at all?" Silence. "How wonderful! Then I won't have to deal with any of the 'Miya, I told you not to tell!' hassles when this gets out to the general public. It's a good thing I didn't take Satsu up on that bet. That girl has never been wrong when it comes to a gamble…"

"Eeeh? What kind of friends are you? You're betting on Nigihayami and ME?" _So much for the silent treatment._

"Kohaku," Miya corrected almost lazily. "And why shouldn't we have? After all, a good friend would tell her friends when there's a possibility of a relationship blossoming." _I wonder if Miya was a minx in a past life. Or a fox. It would explain why I have this desire to frame her tail above my bedroom door._

"Ah, but I would have, if there was a possibility." _And Chihiro attempts to fake her out…and fails._

"Mhmm. Yo-kun and I, being the sweet souls we are, come over to try and make your situation less awkward only to find that you and Nigihayami – er,** Kohaku** are in the midst of a passionate embrace seen only in the pages of the forbidden section of the bookstore." _Again with the romance novel? It's getting a bit drole, and besides, it didn't end quite as it was supposed to -. _She broke off the thought. As it was supposed to have ended…

"Oh my (Radish) God." Chihiro moaned.

"Yeah, that's probably what the school will be saying on Monday." Miya's cheery voice was not consoling Chihiro.

"You know, I forgot – I already did my math homework. Thanks for the offer of the book, but I think that I should really get home soon. Mum'll be worried. I'll see you on Monday, Miya-chan!" There was one word running through Chihiro's mind: ESCAPE!

"Wha-" Miya translated Chihiro's hastily said remarks and made to grab her friend's arm. Chihiro would later assure her that if the appendage had been there, Miya would have cut off circulation to Chihiro's fingers. As it was, it looked like Miya was going to choke the atmosphere itself.

"Bai" It looked as if Chihiro's A in Physical Education was going to pay off. As she sprinted off into the distance, she was immensely relieved to see that Miya hadn't decided to follow in pursuit. First, Ni-Kohaku's nearly kissing her, then Hayori's stumbling in at the wrong time and an irate Miya chasing after her? Chihiro might have been top of her class, but there was only so much that could happen in the course of one football game without shocking her. She needed a nice long bath. _And a plate of Umeboshi._ Yes, her Umeboshi. They would never desert her. They would never question her about her love life. They would never bet AGAINST her. Chihiro sniffled in an injured manner. If they were going to bet, they could have at least shown some faith in her resolve.

Either way, she would think about it later, she decided as she sprinted up to her front door. She took a few evening breaths to make up for the sudden shortage of oxygen to her muscles. They would probably scream at her in protest in a day or two, _just like every other person at Yokto High._ Chihiro shook her head to clear her mind of that thought. _Umeboshi. Must think Umeboshi._ Brushing away some of the strands of hair plastered to her face, she opened the door and made her way into the house.

"I'm home!" She called into the house, not quite sure where her parents were. Wincing at the sight of the muddied – or bloodied, as her mother would undoubtedly say – sandals, Chihiro sprinted up to her room, half tearing off her clothes on the way there. Tossing on a pair of dry clothes haphazardly, she hurried back down the stairs, lightly toweling her hair dry so as not to drip.

"Mum? Where're the Umeboshi at? I'm starving!" Chihiro walked into the kitchen. A plate was on the table. A plate with slight rice residue on it. And a bit of plum. Rice and plum? Kohaku nearly kissing her? Empty plate? Hayori's expression? Empty plate! Miya's discovery? Empty plate!

A banshee-like scream was heard from the blue house on top of the mountain. Neighbors said it was a piece of an overly dramatic television programming. Chihiro said it was the end of her life.

Streaming sunlight woke Chihiro up in the morning. As luck - or as Murphy would have it - streaming sunlight directly into Chihiro's eyes woke her up in the morning. Muttering some vague and idle threat at the sun for daring to disturb her rest, she sat up in bed only to have the majority of the blood in her head rush downwards, giving her a lightheaded feeling. Or maybe the lightheaded feeling was due to the extra space left by the blood being filled with memories of the previous day? Chihiro flopped backwards again. Only to have her face assaulted by the bright light of the sun again.

_This is not starting out to be a good day._ She groaned and rolled over into her pillow. Maybe suffocation was an option. Ancient Japanese used Seppuku, the self-disemboweling method of death at your own sword, why couldn't she use Sen-pillow, the self-suffocation method of death at her own feathery head support? _Then again, how much worse could today be compared to yesterday? Let's see: Within an inch of losing my lips to Kohaku, probably lost my reputation to Hayori, and have, without doubt, lost my mind to Miya.__Oh, and have lost Umeboshi to Father. Et tu pater? _Chihiro recalled only too well the horror that she had felt upon seeing the empty Umeboshi plate.

It wasn't her father's fault that he couldn't help himself. It wasn't her father's fault that Chihiro hadn't wanted any before going to the football game. It wasn't her father's fault that Chihiro hadn't placed any restrictions upon the food item. Or so her mother claimed. Chihiro felt that her father was guilty on all charges, and possibly a few others that hadn't been brought up. Her chocolate stash was a bit lower than usual…

Though normally, any subtle shift in her chocolate stash would have caused at least an orange alert on the National-Security-of-the-United-Mind-States-of-Chihiro-Meter (also known as the National-Security-of-the-United-Mental-Emirates-of-Chihiro-Meter), other issues were taking precedence. She was in position to lose an archenemy, a reputation and all dignity. Oh, and her feet as well if her mother had seen the condition of the sandals. Chihiro paused. She could live without feet but not without an archenemy, reputation or dignity. Heck, given a choice, she would have gladly traded her feet in. Lazy good for nothing appendages had just stood there like stumps last night. How else was she supposed to have gotten away from the situation? But no, her feet were too _busy_. Probably starting at Kohaku's feet in an infatuated manner, with her luck.

Chihiro paused, reflected and considered her train of thought. _I really am losing it, and I've just called him 'Kohaku' twice. He's haunting me._ She sighed in a resigned fashion before rolling over to her left. And promptly falling on the floor. Deciding against having an intimate affair with her carpeting, Chihiro pushed herself upwards and tottered into her bathroom, half-asleep and half-suicidal. _Suicide?_ She pondered the option as she began to brush her teeth. _With my luck, I'll just end up making a fool of myself, yet again. I can see the headlines now: "Role-Model Student Slightly Maimed After Truck Carrying Rabid Squirrels Strikes Her. Police Uncertain How She Found Herself in Middle of Highway."_ She rinsed her toothbrush, stripped and made her way to the shower. _And there's also the ol' "Mum killed me over my love affair with Kohaku" headline._ As the hot water pounded against her back in the most comforting of ways, Option 2 appeared.

_Why mess with suicide when homicide is a perfectly good option? After all, the term is 'evil genius' not 'evil dolt.'_ _Let's see, how many people would I need out of the way? 3? And Satsu and Sora, 5. And everyone else at the game. 587+5. Add in the Sun for good measure, and we're at a nice 593. _Chihiro reflected again. _Then again, those supposed 'evil geniuses' were all caught sooner or later._ She squeezed her soap a little too hard and was rewarded with a face full of suds. _Oh lovely. Now the soap wants to kill me too. Chihiro versus Yokto High, Mother Nature and various inanimate objects. Coming soon to a theatre near you!_ Scowling, Chihiro got out of the shower and toweled herself dry. Grabbing a pair of clothes off the chair, she proceeded to blow dry her hair.

Her dark and potentially lethal thoughts towards the unfair odds against her were cut off when she saw her mother, upside down. Switching off the blow dryer and standing up from her bent position, Chihiro shot her mother an accusatory glace. Her own mother! Feeding her to the gossip-demons! Smiling as she held out the phone! How could she do this to her own flesh and blood?

"Miya-chan's on the phone for you, dear."

Chihiro gaped at her mother for a second. She then made some very frantic and rather garbled hand motions. _Tell her I've gone out! I've not woken yet! I've suffered a painful death at the hands of my bar of soap! Just don't give it to me! _Fortunately for her, her mother spoke/understood the language of frantic garbled hand motions. Unfortunately for her, her mother was not a proponent of dishonesty. Chihiro was at her wits end. Thankfully, a solution was also at her wit's end.

She jumped into the tub. Fully dressed. _I'm in the shower! Safe zone! Score one for Chihiro. I'm only down by about a thousand and forty nine points now._

Her mother tried not to shake her head and smile bemusedly at her daughter's antics, which, of course meant that she did smile bemusedly as she shook her head in disbelief.

"Miya-chan? Chihiro-chan's in the shower. Maybe you could try to call back later?" A pause. "Thank you, have a nice day off from school." A click.

Chihiro ventured a foot out of the shower. She then remembered that her mother was potentially dangerous to her feet. She promptly retracted said foot and substituted a hand in its place. Glancing up at her mother's calculating face, Chihiro wondered if avoiding Miya was worth raising her mother's suspicion. She thought of Miya's anger, outrage and general tendency to spread discontent upon will. _Yes. Besides, it's not like Mum's ever going to find out about this affair. I'll just say that I forgot my math book at school and didn't want Miya to know. Yeah, something like that._

"Uhh, thanks Mum. Y'see, Miya-"

"Don't bother, dear. I'll just wait to see how things turn out."

Chihiro stared in disbelief. Her mother had blown off her cover excuse? _Whaaat? What next? You're going to tell me that the Earth has changed its rotation? The moon is going to hit __Tokyo__? The Sun is going to go out in a few million years? Oh wait…aargh._

Chihiro thought about the day looming in front of her. The past hour had told her that if anything, this day was going to be terrible, at best. If she stayed in the house, the calls would mount and she doubted that anyone would believe she took a 20 hour shower. Eventually, someone would show up at the door. True, she could hide in the bathroom, but the windows in there were far too small to offer a means of escape and there was always the fact that she was on the second floor. It didn't take a genius to realize that a broken leg wouldn't be an asset today. Well, maybe it did sometimes, but Chihiro decided not to risk it.

She was going to spend today at the library, the wonderful world of fun that it was. It was a Sunday, who in their right mind would go to the library? _Well, considering the past twenty four hours, I'm definitely not in my right mind.__The library it is._ Hurricane Chihiro flew through her (already damage-wreaked) room, tossing all possible study items into her bookbag. Breaking the speed of sound – and possibly her back as her bookbag weighed nearly as much as she did – Hurricane Chihiro set off down the stairs. Making a brief detour, she attacked the kitchen relentlessly in search of foodstuffs. Finally, having caused enough havoc in the immediate vicinity, Hurricane Chihiro called out a hasty goodbye to her parental units and was out the door in a flash, taking time only to steal another pair of her mother's sandals. _It's not like she can chop off my feet twice._

Hurricane Chihiro gave way to Slightly-Menacing-Tropical-Storm Chihiro as she set off towards the library in town. She was mildly surprised that with her luck, no one had intercepted her already. She was also quite surprised that with her unstable mental condition, no one had called a state of national emergency. After all, she still was Slightly-Menacing-Tropical-Storm Chihiro. She was dangerous; she was ferocious; she was rather hungry. Deciding to make base camp at the bottom of the hill, Chihiro dropped her backpack with an earthquaking thud behind some shrubbery. She began to rummage through it in search of some sort of nutritious (or un-nutritious) item of edibility. _No Umeboshi. Will have to settle for an apple, or perhaps a bar of chocolate. What's that sound…?_ Were those footsteps?

Slightly-Menacing-Tropical-Storm Chihiro became Nonexistent-Snow-in-Death-Valley Chihiro. Peering cautiously around the foliage, Chihiro heard some snatches of conversation.

"She'll probably try to hide in the bathroom. Honestly, no one takes shower for that long."

"Mm."

"Anyway, I'll go in. Satsu, you cover the area under her bathroom window. Sora, you take the stairwell in case she makes a break for it. I'll try to corner her into a confession."

"Got it."

"Roger."

"Don't forget, we're going to have to move quietly, quickly and efficiently. She's a desperate one…"

Chihiro let out a breath as the voices faded off into a distance. Fight-or-Flight Chihiro was now in war mode. Miya's words were a declaration of a state of hostility! Corner her? They had to get up earlier than that if they wanted to trap Chihiro! _Hm, and I had already thought of escaping through the windows. You may be cunning, Miya-chan, but you're not exactly a tactician. Every move must be planned. If you hadn't called, I wouldn't have been on high alert and wouldn't have thought to flee. Or, if you had simply come over early in the morning, I would have probably been too desperate for sleep to bother not to give you answers._

Chihiro smirked. She had finally managed to out-do Miya. Maybe she hadn't lost all of her skills. _And, oh dear, I seem to have forgotten to tell Mum and Dad where I was heading. _She had simply called out "Going out, taking shoes. Bai." And run out the door. Her mother had probably assumed that she was going over to Miya's. Chihiro allowed herself a 10 evil laugh. _Maybe there is something for being an evil genius after all._

With that slightly less than innocent thought and a candy bar in hand, Chihiro set off for the library, intent on getting some good, hard studying time in before the end of the her social life set in. No sense in ruining her academic record along with her social one, right?

_Mind mushy. So tired._ Chihiro had spent the day holed away in the darkest, dimmest and possibly dirtiest corner of the library: with the encyclopedias. With the advent of the internet, no one ever bothered to wander those aisles and even the batty librarians, who were more akin to ferocious birds of prey than bats, had given up dusting them. The principle of diffusion stated that if so much knowledge was outside of Chihiro's brain, at least some of it would have managed to find its way inside. It was a pity that all laws of the world seemed to work against her.

In the quiet, studious environment of the library, all that went through Chihiro's mind was the impending doom upon the recommencement of school the next morning. All the possible scenarios had played through her head in their gory detail. Kohaku (she had finally given into calling him by his given name, even in her head) would walk over to her, her feet would betray her and he would sweep her up into a passionate embrace, scandalizing the class beyond repair. Or perhaps she wouldn't live long enough to see him – Miya and company would flay her alive for the details of her meeting. Or, there was still the option of Sen-pillow. Or she could change her name and identity and move to another country. Sen. She could become Pillow Sen, participant in the Save-Chihiro-From-Dishonor Foundation.

Yes, that was it. She would change her name and respond only to Sen. She could build her own country. Perhaps take over a small island in the Bahamas. The weather was supposedly nice over there and it would be keeping with her desire to become and evil genius bent on world domination.

She sighed as she reached her front door. It was past eleven at night and she was fairly certain that Miya, Satsu and Sora had left by now. After all, being in Class A meant that they had to do some homework sometime. _There's no way to delay it any longer then. Taking over a Bahamian island will take more than a few hours of hasty planning. I can't come in right before the bell because I've got to go the class representative meeting with…_her breath caught. She hadn't realized this development, which was saying something as she had been turning the thought over for around twelve hours (minus the thoughts on lost Umeboshi). _Kohaku._

_Ah, well. I'm just doomed. I give up. Let fate have her way with me. I just want some food and some rest._ Chihiro entered her house, slipped off the pair of unmangled shoes she had stolen earlier and weakly called out that she was home. As she had stopped off at a local restaurant and dined on a classy bowl of ramen (chicken flavored), Chihiro simply made her way up the stairs, dropped her bag into her chair, changed her clothes and sank into her bed gratefully. She was going to need her energy for tomorrow.

**Author's Addendum: About the resolution the cliffy: Saki-mouto-chan was the only one who had really been guessing when we hit 50 reviews and I emailed her soon afterwards. Per her choice, Chihiro and Haku did not kiss in this chapter. Maybe people'll participate more in the next contest now that they know that I plan on following through? Either way, all comments (and fresh veggies/fruit) should be directed towards her :) And I know Seppuku and Senpillow are dissimilar due to the added 'n' but I had to work the identity of 'Sen' in there somehow…**

**Sorry for the delay in the update. As I've said individually, schoolwork has been very trying and as I've stated in my profile, senior year is a royal pain. It's a pity I can't use these chapters as college essays. It'd save me a lot of trouble.**

**Oh, and once again, if you want to join CUML (Changes Updates Mailing List), simply leave your email in the review. It sometimes takes some time to update a story, but with an email alert, you can access the new chapter through my profile page :)**

**Until we meet again.**

**092103**


	5. To Meals and Mondays

**Changes**: _To Meals and Mondays_

**Disclaimer: All Spirited Away characters belong to ****Miyazaki**** and his lawyers. All unfamiliar characters belong to the author. No shoes were held up at mud-point in the course of this chapter.**

**NOTE: This chapter goes out to Dante, Lirawen and Sasami. If it weren't for them, I'd be wishing you a Merry Christmas (/Happy Hannukah/Kwanzaa) instead of a Happy (Belated) ****Turkey**** Day.**

W_hy did I rule out becoming an evil genius with headquarters on a __Caribbean__ island again? _Chihiro was standing outside the door to the Academically Popular Club– also known as the weekly class representative meeting. Unfortunately for her, they were often the first people to hear the latest news of class affairs. _Affair?__ There is no affair! Actually, why don't I go see if there are any 'for rent' ads for a nice volcanic lair in the __Caribbean_ _Oh, right, no time. No time! Ack, I only have five minutes left!_ Chihiro glanced down at her watch. On a normal Monday, she would have come a half an hour before the meeting began just to keep her reputation as a dependable student up. Today, however, there were only a few measly minutes until the Doom-Chihiro-to-Rebutting-Rumors meeting and the Chihiro in question was standing in front of the closed door, trying to build up the nerve to open it. _5 precious minutes of freedom. What have I done with my life for it to end this way?_ Chihiro sighed and bundled her nerve together before setting a hand on the door. It was now or never. Do or die. Fly or fall. _Fall? Die? Never is sounding more and more appealing. Yes, never is a good time for me._

Chihiro turned about sharply, only to end up facing the person she had been so desperately trying to avoid. Since having woken in the morning, Chihiro's determination had returned - along with a sense of cowardliness that she would have sworn on pain of death had never existed before. It was as if Kohaku simply brought the immature little girl out of her! _Him and his 'Look at me, I'm so handsome, I could melt a polar ice cap' looks, it's all their fault._ Chihiro could have kicked herself. _I did not just say that. My imagination is running away with me – again! Actually,_ she amended, _it would probably rather run away with **him**, but I'm not giving it that option, so hah!_

"Ah, Kohaku-kun. Imagine seeing you here!" The words that were coming out of Chihiro's mouth were sugary enough to make a bumblebee fly away sick, but Kohaku seemed to be impervious. _I mean, I've only been attempting to avoid being seen with you for the next eternity in order to save some shreds of dignity, you know, for posterity's sake. Or perhaps for my grandchildren. Of course, that means I'd have to have children. Would you like to give me- _Chihiro cut her mind off before it could keep rambling on its present tangent. There had already been enough talk about their supposed baby without her subconsciously proposing the idea to him.

"Chihiro-san, I never really got the chance to actually talk to you the other evening. I wanted to ask you if you remember-"

"Oi! So there're the two 3A representatives!" Yumi, a 2B representative had just yanked the door open to reveal Kohaku and Chihiro seemingly deep in a private conversation. Quietly adding it to her list of 'gossipable' material, she proceeded to drawl out that the meeting was about to start. "You'd **think** that being Class A, they would be here early, or, at the very, very least, **on time**."

"Ah, our sincere apologies, Tsuna-san, we seemed to have lost track of time." Kohaku shot her a winning smile. _I wonder if he knows how devastatingly effective that look is_, Chihiro mused, warily noting that he seemed to be closer to her than she last recalled. '_Remember'? What was he talking about? And why wasn't he in the least embarrassed about…about 'the incident'!_

"Ogino-san?" Chihiro was knocked out of her thought bubble rather rudely by Yumi.

"Ah, yes. I'm sorry, Tsuna-san!" Chihiro attempted to give her own winning smile, but faltered. _He makes it look so easy and, and, **natural!**_ She followed Yumi into the room, her mind spinning with Kohaku, his words and this mockingly perfect winning smile.

"…and that is why the slope under a velocity-time curve equals the acceleration of the system and-" A loud ringing drowned out the man's words for a few moments. "Your homework is to do all the even-numbered problems in the review section for this chapter. The test will be Wednesday morning. You are dismissed."

Chihiro stared down at her blank assignment book. Her hand began to write the homework down but her mind was bracing itself for the onslaught of she-wolves, otherwise known as her friends. Her dear, sweet friends. Her dear, sweet, supportive, gossip-mongering friends who were willing to bet against her! _I hope they like losing yen…_

"Chihiro-chan! There you are!" Right on cue, Miya's voice wafted through the air. 'Sliced through the air' would probably have been a better term. Her eyes glinted with renewed determination. Apparently, Miya hadn't been very appreciative of Hurricane Chihiro's disappearing act. Chihiro couldn't see why, after all, Hurricane Chihiro, besides being cuddly and lovable, had only raised the water level enough to, at most, have wet Miya's socks.

"Ah, Miya-chan, Satsu-chan, Sora-chan. What a surprise. I mean, we've only been in the same class all morning, ne?" Chihiro threw caution to the winds. Playing with Miya was like playing with proverbial fire. More often than not, Chihiro felt like the marshmallow roasting above said proverbial fire. _Well, if I'm a marshmallow, just give me some graham crackers and chocolate and I'll make a s'more out of myself. _Chihiro reflected for a moment. _Well, I **would**_ _if father hadn't raided my chocolate stash. Must make his mealtime miserable until he repents for his sins! The __Chihiro__Church__ of Chocolate does not forgive easily!_

"Chihiro-chan! You wound me! Your dear, sweet, kind friend-"

"-who, when she places bets about me, bets **against** me?" Chihiro scowled at Satsu and Miya. Sora looked a bit abashed as well, Chihiro made a mental note to find out why later. _What're **they** plotting? As if having Miya on my case isn't enough…_

"Ah, Chihiro-chan, it really depends on the way you look at things. I mean, I was going to bet that you'd hold out, but look at the situation now! I mean, for all practical purposes, you and Kohaku-kun are dating." Miya waved this all off while frowning at her chipped nail polish, apparently secure in the fact that Chihiro had no escape.

_The whole school WHAT!_ "Miya-chan." Chihiro found that speaking through her teeth was not as good a stress reliever as it would seem. She was barely able to keep her wrath in check. _I didn't think you'd go tell the whole SCHOOL. I mean, yes, you are probably the secret service's nightmare, but I figured you'd limit yourself to Sora and Satsu! Sheesh, maybe I should have taken Satsu up on a bet. I least, that way, I'd be making some profit on this disaster._

"Hmm?" Miya was fiddling with her right pinky nail, muttering something about having to repaint her nails before her date tonight.

"Why, pray tell, does the whole school think Kohaku-kun and I are dating?"

"Oh, that." _Yes, **that**._ Chihiro noted that Sora and Satsu had exchanged looks when the words "Kohaku-kun" had escaped her lips. _Err…I thought they already knew? Would somebody please pass the memo detailing who does and does not know certain facts about this entire situation of emergency?_ "Yumi-sempai, from class 2B was talking about it to Ran-chan, from class 1E – you know how big a gossip Ran-chan is – and anyway, Ran-chan told me that you and Kohaku-chan had a nice little rendezvous in lieu of going to the class representative meeting. Tsk tsk, and we thought we had elected diligent class members."

Chihiro wondered if things could get any worse. She could have smacked herself. In fact, she did mentally smack herself, but it was too late. Hardly had that thought passed her mind when another voice entered the dreaded interrogation that Miya was obviously happily beginning. At the same time, she noted that the rest of the class has fallen silent, apparently thinking that eavesdropping was not such a bad habit.

"Ogino-san!"

Chihiro looked up, attempting to look as innocent and bewildered as possible. _Yes, go for the baby deer routine. No one can resist the overly large, innocent eyes coupled with a slight, curious tilt of the head and topped with a bashful smile. If I'm lucky, they'll take pity on me and save me from this situation. If I'm unlucky, they'll take pity on me and stick me in a petting zoo. _"Yes?"

She was rewarded as the boy – what was his name? Hara? Haro? Yes, that was it, Haro. – stumbled into a desk and began to stutter. Chihiro wondered if she had overplayed the look. Haro hardly looked to be her savior. _Well, if he's on my enemy's side, he might just shoot me for Sunday dinner, which would be just as effective._

"Ah, Nigihayami-kun wanted me to give you this." Haro blushed a shade of red the sun would have been envious of as he handed Chihiro a nondescript note. Chihiro's eyebrow positively gave an annoyed twitch. _What does he have against me? I'm the one who's supposed to be setting him up to usurp his position_

"Oh, what's this, a love letter?" Miya leaned over in an attempt to sneak a look. Satsu and Sora craned their necks accordingly.

Chihiro crumpled the small scrap of paper within her fist. "Ahaha, nice try. Actually, it's a note about how I need to finish up the Class Representative work that didn't get done this morning, so if you'll excuse me…" _Yes, this just might work. Random tangents are the answer to everything in life!_

"The class work that didn't get done because you and Nigihayami were having a secluded meeting?"

And here, Chihiro had thought that Sora was the safe one. Manipulative Miya and Scheming Satsu, but Sharp-tongued-Sora? Chihiro was fastly becoming a minority opinion within her group of friends. _Salvage mission. Must salvage and make an escape._

"Yes, greeting each other right in front of the doorway is a very secluded spot, Sora-chan. But either way, we didn't get all of our work done earlier so I'd better hurry and see if I can get my share done during this period." Chihiro tried to make her voice as matter-of-fact as she could, adding in a few raises of her eyebrows for needed emphasis.

"With Nigihayami?" _Bloody Hell…_

"Oh, that's right! How are we going to know that you're not just sneaking off to meet with him?" _Stupid women's intuition. It's not supposed to be used against the same sex!_

"Well, you did vote both of us to be representatives, so I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to go meet him. However," Chihiro was quick to cut off the triumphant gleam in Miya's eyes, "rest assured that everything that's between us will be purely professional." _Yes. As professional as a ninja systematically making a pincushion out of her enemy._

"Well, I suppose you're telling the truth." Satsu was very reluctant to let Chihiro leave. The rest of the female population, however, seemed torn between elation that Kohaku was still unattached, and severe disappointment that the Chihiro-fish had wriggled free of the cast netting.

"Then, I'll be off. Do try not to smother Hayori-kun at lunch, Miya-chan." Suppressing a triumphant smirk as Satsu and Sora rounded on a meek Miya, Chihiro calculated the latest score: _Chihiro: One. World: Five Hundred and Ninety Three. Well, at least I'm gaining; just give me a few more decades._

Slightly out of breath, but not nearly enough to ever admit it, Chihiro found her way to the deserted Advanced Physics classroom. The corridors were still desolate, what with it being lunch and all. _Lunch. Argh, this is the second meal he's cost me! Unforgivable!_

Sliding the door open with slightly more vehemence than one usually showed towards the wooden object, she found Kohaku by the windows. Still slightly wary of her last two encounters with him, she drew closer, but was careful to keep a very nice cushion of personal space between herself and the jade-eyed boy.

"Kohaku-kun. You wanted to see me?" Chihiro's voice concealed a slight edge that Kohaku was sure to catch. She held the crumpled remains of the note up as evidence and quirked an eyebrow at him. She was certainly not going to play the speechless harlot anymore. _Was it just me, or did Kohaku-kun seem a bit taken aback?_

"Chihiro-san. I apologize. My behavior the other day, well, I really don't know what came over me. Please accept my sincere apologies." Chihiro was a bit taken aback by Kohaku's gravity; she certainly wasn't expecting him to bow to her.

"Er- It's alright, I guess. I mean, it was also partially my fault." Chihiro blinked a few times. This had not been in her plan. _Which plan am I on again? F? Plan F. That just sounds so foreboding._ There was something about Kohaku that just made her determination to pummel him, both figuratively and physically, wane away into a comforting sense of security. _Security?__ From Kohaku's presence? I need more food; first it's random logic, next, it'll be hallucinations._ After the trouble that her last "hallucination" had caused her, Chihiro wasn't to keen on experiencing them again.

"Ah, but I didn't mean to waste your time like this. I actually wanted to ask you a question. Well, it's rather a pointless question really, so you'll have to forgive me for that as well…" _Is he **rambling**? Nigihayami Kohaku is rambling? Come to think of it, he was a bit off-color this morning too…_

"Uh. I can try to answer your question, but I can't guarantee anything." Chihiro had had too much interrogation to allow herself to be backed into a corner, even if it was Nigihayami and even if it was only metaphorically. _Not that I would let him back me into a secluded corner physically…_She hastily amended that thought. _Dang, it seems to have already happened._ Somewhere in the back of her head, she felt a bit proud that of all the girls Kohaku could have cornered in a dark enclave, it had been her. Then her common sense squished the little voice with a big can of "Even Nice Guys Can Be Dangerous." _Better the voice than my Radish God._

"-Well, as I mentioned, this will seem a bit odd but, have you ever taken a trip to a Bathhouse?"

Whatever Chihiro had expected, this hadn't been it. _What, is he some closet pervert? A Bathhouse? Those are ancient; I'd be lucky if mum and dad sprang for a trip to the __Hot Springs__, much less a Bathhouse. Though why he'd want to know if I've been to one can't be very honorable..._

"Uhm, I can't say that I actually recall anything like that. I mean, if my family ever went, I'd have had to be very little." Little. The world seemed to resound oddly in her head, which had become rather empty.

"Nothing? Are you sure?" Kohaku's eyes almost seemed to be pleading as he gazed searchingly at her. Chihiro was relieved to see that he hadn't come any closer. _Mental. Totally mental. I guess this is what happens when the pressure gets to you. Well, I guess it can't hurt to let myself be associated with him a bit more._ Inner-Chihiro smirked. _Yes, I, the steadfast supporter of Kohaku in his waning mental stability. That will be the public view. Privately, it's pay back time. One lovely little shove over the cliffs of insanity ought to make us even. And put on a lovely show for the class that will probably eclipse our supposed sordid affair._ She internally shrugged. _Eh, it'll amuse me for a bit anyway, why not?_

"Un. Nope. Nothing that comes to me off the top of my head. Why?" _Well, besides this odd sensation of a breeze on my cheek and wind whistling through my hair as the world blurs by. Wonderful. Insanity is apparently contagious. I knew I should have gotten the vaccine._

"Ah, I see. No particular reason, really." Kohaku seemed a bit disappointed, though he appeared to be attempting to hide it. He also seemed to be hiding something. Chihiro was spurred on by the fact that she could see through his ruse. _Hmm, insanity gives a lot of insight about Mr. Perfect._

"Sorry, I can ask my family but I don't really recall anything." _Not anything that I'd admit before being sent to an asylum. Hallucinations, weird flashback-esque snippets of thought that never happened, that odd little voice in my head…the case doesn't look too bright…_

"Oh, that's really alright. It was a rather odd question for me to ask anyway."

"So you've said." Chihiro replied with a small smile. It was nice to have the upper hand for once. "Well, I suppose we should get the representative work done before the period ends."

"No problems there. I've finished it. I placed it on the windowsill." Kohaku motioned to a stack of papers neatly seated in front of the windows.

"Already! But I was supposed to help you with them! When did you get the time?" _Aaa__ So much for the upper hand!_

Kohaku just gave a small, sincere laugh. _Wow. He looks nice when he laughs. Er. Snap out of it Chihiro! Must not let guard down! Well, maybe just for a second...no! Must focus. Words coming, should listen!_ "I had some time during class so I figured that it wouldn't hurt if I worked a bit on them…" He trailed off and Chihiro immediately saw his point.

"You weren't paying attention to Mr. Seiyo this morning!" She found herself laughing despite herself. Kohaku let a slightly abashed smile find its way onto his lips.

"You might say that."

"Indeed." Chihiro drawled the word out, smirking conspiratorially. "Well, that being done, why don't we head on down to grab some lunch?" Hardly had the words escaped her mouth when the bell rang, signifying the end of the lunch period. _Aw, man. Are picked radishes in season or something? This is getting to be ridiculous! Wait, did I just invite him to have lunch with me? Maybe I should consider that asylum. I hear they have some nice décor and a healthy supply of padded walls…_

"Well, if you're not already scandalized by my having done the papers in Prof Seiyo's class, we could just get a pass from Katsuya-sempai and miss a bit of Modern Japanese…"

Was he really offering what she thought she heard? _Ditching class versus spending time with Kohaku. More importantly Food versus Modern Japanese. Well, if I'm spending time with Kohaku just to make sure he's more insane than I could ever possibly become, then I guess it's justified. Plus, he's paying. _"Only if you ask him, you're his prized soccer star!" Chihiro laughed lightly. She hadn't forgotten her previous experience, but it **had** been partially her fault. Well, more accurately, the rebellious state of her feet was at fault; but all the same, she could give Kohaku the benefit of the doubt this time around, something deep within assured her. After all, she was getting a meal out of this!

"It's a deal!"

**Author's Addendum:**

**Well, I'm not dead. Physically. Yet. (Yeah, yeah, no more parties rejoicing about it…) Still buried under a mountain of mounting work. Pointed knife of sarcasm being blunted in my effort to dig out.**

**I do sincerely apologize for the delay in the writing of this chapter. I had half written and the second part simply refused to be written. It took a great deal of coaxing and a chunk of my chocolate stash to finally persuade it. And so enters The Plot. Bwaha. The three reviewers mentioned in the Note should probably be thanked.**

**Hence, I'm guessing the next update will be in the vicinity of Winter holidays. Or three weeks from now, ****12/26/03**** I might get it out earlier, who knows? If you'd rather not keep checking for the next update, you're welcome to leave your email to be added to CUML (Changes Update Mailing List).**

**Until you choose to risk another meeting.**

**120303**


	6. To Tricks and Tuesdays

**Changes: **To Tricks and Tuesdays

**Disclaimer: All Spirited Away characters belong to ****Miyazaki**** and his lawyers. All unfamiliar characters belong to the author. A daikon was severely injured in the making of this chapter but it is expected that he will survive.**

**Dedication: To Dante, for making it hard for me to feign amnesia.**

A vague feeling of dread awoke Chihiro. It was probably for the better that the misplaced feeling was only vague, else she would have been more anxious than annoyed at discovering the source. As it was, being up five minutes before her alarm annoyed Chihiro to no end.

"And it was such a good dream, too! Well, I think it was, anyway…" Chihiro mumbled rather confusedly at her luminescent alarm. _Five more minutes and now I'm up. Argh, what form of torture is this?_ Well, at least some of her old temper was returning. Having nothing better to do, and wary of the chill that infested her room at this ungodly hour, Chihiro snuggled deeper into her downy comforter, ruminating.

_First topic at the Chihiro Meeting of the Minds: lunch with one Nigihayami Kohaku. Common Sense and Self-Preservation, you are excused from the topic based on your nonattendance of said event_. Chihiro waited patiently for the two to leave the vicinity before thinking back to how her return to class the previous day had not been un-remarked upon. When the door had opened, the normally stoic and battle-hardened Mr. Mayamoto had paused and stared as his two star pupils entered the classroom not the bit sheepishly. Whereas mortals clutched their precious pass and made a haphazard toss onto the desk, hoping he wouldn't interrogate them (pass-less souls were left to wander the hallways for eternity) whilst they scurried to their assigned seats, Kohaku simply walked up to Mr. Mayamoto and handed him their pass with a very slight, but respectful, nod.

Chihiro had quickly decided that if Kohaku was going to use the shock-and-awe technique, she might as well aid him or it would be her parents who would be shocked and awed when she received detention. After the muddy shoe incident, Chihiro was hesitant to provoke her mother. Always prim and proper, Mrs. Ogino had still managed to leave Chihiro's ears ringing (and her inner child dying of boredom) with the lecture she received on "taking care of others' property." Luck was with Chihiro for once. _Or it's with Kohaku, and I just happen to be with him. Wait. No. I'm not associated with him in any way, shape or fashion!_

Kohaku had stridden off to his seat purposefully (if the blood in Chihiro's ears hadn't been beating so loudly, she would have heard a wistful sigh or two at the figure he cut.) Chihiro followed him as if he had enchanted her legs to move. Whereas beforehand, she had cursed fate for placing them side by side, it was a very glad Chihiro indeed who found herself standing next to her own seat when Kohaku stopped. Feeling oddly like the plate of yakisoba she had eaten had turned into lead, she swung herself gracefully (_or gracelessly, upon reflection_) into her seat. Pulling out a notebook and looking upward once more, she could see that the rest of the class was concentrating very hard on Mr. Mayamoto. So hard that not one gaze had left Chihiro and Kohaku. Mr. Mayamoto stared at the note some more, glanced up at them and apparently decided that their grades left them beyond reproach. Or that he wasn't being paid enough for this. Either way, Chihiro was relieved to see him turn his back to them and resume the lesson.

At this escape from certain doom, Chihiro's nerves began to rekindle. Along with those nerves sprung up a sort of foolish recklessness. No, she did not regret skiving off class. No, she did not feel remorseful about making a scene. No, she did not feel the need to apologize for having scheduled herself another lunch hour. In fact, it had been rather enjoyable, and Kohaku had made very good company now that they were on comfortable speaking terms with each other. She had felt almost like their friendship had appeared with unnatural quickness. It was like they had been old friends, rekindling a long-lost relationship.

_"FRIENDSHIP?"__ Vengeance sprang up from her seat, flames dancing in her eyes. "'Very good company.' 'Enjoyable.' 'Old friends.' 'RELATIONSHIP?' That's fraternizing with the enemy, that's what it is! You very well know that you have broken the Chihiro Code of Conduct, Rules 56, 76, 77, and 78. Not to mention shattering Rule 34! Consorting with the enemy, how could you?"_

_ "As if being Kohaku's consort would be such a horrible fate." Replied The-Little-Voice gleefully. It seemed that all of her subliminal efforts had not been in vain!_

_ "12 slaps?" Queried Self-Control, attempting to recover the tally._

_ "Tally? To the toads with that! I'm going to squash The-Little-Voice before our cause is lost!" Vengeance roared before Self-Control could look up again._

_ "Meep!" The-Little-Voice was pounced upon and a mad tussle ensured._

Choosing to turn a blind eye, Chihiro's mind cast back to the previous event. As class restarted, a small, rather pathetic-looking origami crane had landed on her desk. It was obvious whose efforts were that shoddy. _Only my friends…_ Opting to ignore the class due to the adrenaline coursing through her blood, Chihiro opened the note with an air of carelessness that was only partially feigned.

The color that she had possessed before held no chance. Chihiro paled, reddened, and then returned to where she hoped was the norm in quick succession.

"Whatever we said earlier, we take it back. You and Nigihayami-kun are officially an item now! Ditching class for him, eh? You never were willing to do that with us! We're hurt. But, as we are such dear, dear friends, we are willing to overlook your transgression of lying toward us. They were pretty poorly concealed feelings anyway. Anyone can see that the two of you were meant for each other. It might help your cause, though, if you wanted to share some info. Satsu's killing the rest of us in the pool. Honestly, the girl is business, right down to the very last gold coin! Any tidbits you want to give to help an old, loyal friend? Try not to let your grades slip too much, ne?

Miya."

Of course, this was all scrawled in loopy handwriting that Chihiro had to read twice before fully understanding the ramifications of. Chihiro read the note a third time, hoping that as the elated feeling inside her was dying a small, painful death, the note's words would rearrange themselves into a new, less socially-devastating order. A fourth time to make sure that she had read all the kanji correctly. A few deep breaths to keep herself from whirling upon Miya while her head enlarged to epic proportions and flame spilling out of her mouth, the room swirling into charred disarray. Finally, having finished cycling through the five stages of a terminally ill patient rapidly, Chihiro calmed down enough to have a few rational thoughts.

Like where the nearest spaceship to Mars was.

Or if there was a pillow nearby to commit sen-pillow with.

Or if there were any countries nearby that didn't consider homicide a crime.

And if there were tickets for four to above mentioned country available.

And if the plane involved served anything besides oversalted peanuts.

_Rational thoughts indeed.__ Rational enough to get me committed_. Chihiro groaned into her pillow. The rest of the day was a blur to her. A blur with blotches of anger at her friends' conduct, spots of annoyance at a gossip-loving class and speckled with attempts to avoid any self-incrimination. _Maybe I'm going about this in the wrong way._ Chihiro mused to herself, slowly falling back into her slumberland._ Maybe everyone else is right, and I'm just in some weird sort of denial about disliking Nigihayami because we really are soul mates destined for each other..._

…Oh, but how warm her bed was. She hugged one of her pillows closer to herself as she seemed feel a breeze flying past her. She blinked and looked around; she was high above everything. Looking with wonderment at the clouds for only a moment more, she glanced around at the sparkling blue beneath her – was that…water? The sea? But wasn't the sea more green? Because of the photosynthetic algae living on the surface, the lowest level of the oceanic food chain? A sudden plunge closer to the water lacking Chihiro's friendly neighborhood algae suddenly caused her to cling closer to whatever she was riding while closing her eyes in an effort to keep all exits closed from her fast dropping stomach. Being the hardened, roughing-it sort of gal she was, Chihiro put a pinky toe out of her bubble of safety by cracking an eyelid. Amid the flurry of tears that rushed to remoisturize her coffee-colored pupil, she got a glimpse of something big, and rather greenish, albeit, a rather blurry glimpse. What was she, some quaking schoolgirl? Actually…wait, no! Ogino Chihiro wouldn't be defeated by some huge, green flying thing that was the only thing keeping her from hurtling to her death below. _One: We're hurtling downward to begin with so there's nothing really to lose. Two: If it was going to make sushi out of me, it probably would have done so already. Three: I'm not marinated enough to eat cooked. Four: I wonder if anyone has told it that at a high enough velocity, hitting water is really no softer than running into concrete? Five: Does it even know what concrete iiiiiisssss-_

A shriek escaped her as they turned vertical and Chihiro opened her eyes to see the water mere feet away from here. _I'm going to die! So young! So many lost opportunities! Like crashing Father's new company car! Stealing Mother's new suede pumps! Eating so many more umeboshiiiiii_

-EEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEP!

"Huh?" Chihiro woke, startled by her alarm again. As before, the memories of her dream fell away into a sieve, leaving her with only the vague glimpse and her musings about "going about this in the wrong way."…_Yeah, anything short of getting an Uzi is definitely going about this in the wrong way._

* * *

Thus, a rather determined and battle hardened Chihiro (she had made sure to show her alarm clock a thing or two amid her flurry of exotic phrases for less than pleasant sounding promises) stalked into Yokto Perfecture High School, intent on finding Miya, Sora and Satsu and feeding them to the first nameless, faceless thing that would consent to a mild case of indigestion. She was marching through the corridors with terrible purpose in her gait; her hair, bag and uniform swept behind her, looking very much as a samurai would have looked if bloody battlefields had linoleum flooring instead of, as they are more usually represented, fiery smoking excuses for graves. That, and if samurai wore a rather short skirt that swayed with fury. Finding her prey nicely flocked together, Chihiro continued her warpath right up to them. _Cower in fear, mortals, for I, pretty senshi Chihiro am here to punish you in the name of the Radish God!_

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!" _Wince in fear, for I, dumbfounded senshi Chihiro am here to smack you with a dictionary in the name of the Radish God? _This was highly odd. Why were they so chipper?

"That is to say, if she even got home. Hmm, wonder if her new boyfriend is going to keep her out much later. A cranky Chihiro is hardly a comforting thing to face in the wee hours of morning." Satsu failed miserably at covering a sadistic smirk. _Smirk in a reasonable feint of fear, for I, utterly stupefied senshi Chihiro am here to stare at you in disbelief in the name of the Radish God?_

"Shh, Satsu, she might be awake enough to understand what you're saying!" _Giggle in semblance of fear, for I…oh forget it, why do I have to pick such an edible god as my patron? Probably because it's yummy and my stomach rules my mind…_

"Really? Well, even if she was, I don't think she has enough willpower to enact any lasting damage on me at this point. And she'll be busy later so…" _I mean, I suppose a duck god isn't much of an improvement, he'd be eaten for Christmas dinner. Maybe a baby duck…wait, **what did you just say?**_

"Satsu!" Miya cut her off sharply with a look that even the near apocalyptic Chihiro caught and translated to say 'Shut up! Chihiro doesn't know anything yet and if she did, she probably would want nothing to do with whatever we're plotting so instead of being decent humanoid beings and ceasing our meddling, we're going to keep going and just not tell her until it's far too late for her to back out and she'll be too busy bemoaning her fate to significantly maim us. Not that we don't have our wills ready or anything.'. _That's rather harsh. I do know **some** things…whoever said ignorance was bliss should be subject to the worst possible punishment: they should have to deal with these three evil spirits and the remnants of a patron Radish God._

"You know," Chihiro began, lacing her words with sarcasm the way a crack addict would his cookies, "I wonder why I don't like mornings more. I mean, I have such wonderful friends, whose infernal suspicions keep me up at night-" She paused as Miya clamped a hand over Satsu's mouth, pre-empting the latter's ejection of 'What, don't you mean _Nigihayami_'s keeping you up at night?' "-and whose brilliantly timed notes cause me to frighten the poor Class D student that I was tutoring after school yesterday because the great and mighty Ogino Chihiro of 3-A, second only to the magnificent godlike being that we peons are unworthy of naming, is distracted enough to claim that fourteen divided by seven was two and a half. And," She continued, picking up steam that was in dire need of venting, "friends who continue to gamble illicitly upon school property (just wait until I find out if that's a misdemeanor or felony punishable by community service – I'll make you clean my entire house. On your knees. With wooden buckets of scalding water!) about the nonexistent relationship between your supposed friend and her eternal rival!" Again, Chihiro paused as Sora clamped her hand above Miya's to further muffle the 'rival – you mean, rival in love, right?' that Satsu was reckless enough to state. _Rival in love? What's gotten into that girl? I'm not vying with anyone for his love; I don't need to. Oh, slugs. Thirteen slaps._

"Keep it down. Might I remind you that you are winning in the betting pool that our dear slave driver is ranting about? Maybe we should just let her take out this anger upon you?" Sora hissed to Satsu as Chihiro caught her breath. "It'd be enough to keep her distracted for the short while that we need…" _Aha. They are plotting something. Time to pull out the big guns. _She reflected a moment, sorely regretful of Japan's laws against Uzis in high schools. _Metaphorically, of course._

"After all this, you still have the will to keep harassing me? What, do you **want** your ashes to be scattered to the winds within the week?"

"Uhh…" The trio was slightly taken aback by the quiet, incredulous tone that Chihiro had ended upon, which, though a marked relief from her original tone (a howling banshee-like noise produced vehemently enough to make their ears ring), made them slightly wary of what their rather brilliant friend was up to. After all, she was second in the class.

"I mean, it's not like I've done anything to particularly incur this sort of treatment," Chihiro sustained in as pitiful a voice as she could muster.

"Aw, come on, don't give us that voice-"

"-that tone-"

"-that face!"

"B-but…" Unwittingly, they had been defeated. Like a mousetrap hurtling through space in order to trap the hapless creature in a position of more than slight discomfort, Chihiro's plan snapped, trapping the three girls in possibly the most feared position possible. They had to face her Kicked-Puppy eyes. Sheer genius is all well and good, but at the end of it all, there's just no escaping the Kicked-Puppy face, with its disgustingly cute and pathetically watering eyes and pouty lips to top it all off. Men everywhere curse the original creator, vowing to lynch her (a rather empty vow, actually, as if they ever found said woman, she would probably use The Face upon them and escape with their credit cards.) _You're in my grasp now, my pretties. There's no escape. Now, come out with it. What have you got in store for me that I have to go rectify before I continue your daily dose of mental torture? Oh, and while you're in my evil clutches, have you seen a largish, radishish looking creature walking around?_

"Okay, okay, I give!" Miya looked away, pulling her hand away from Satsu's face.

"You'll stop harassing me?" Chihiro was stunned. She knew her Kicked-Puppy face was good, but had she known it was that good, she would have used it earlier and more often. _Guess those weren't wasted hours in front of the mirror! First step: take over the minds of ordinary high school students. Second step: __Japan__. Third step: The rest of the world! I shall be the most lovable dictator ever! No one will be able to have the heart to topple me and if they even consider it, they'll feel so bad that they'll have to buy me multiple plates of Umeboshi!_

"Well, you see," Sora interrupted Chihiro's delusions of grandeur before she could start drooling.

"You're going on a double date with Miya-chan, Hayori-kun and-"

"Kohaku." Chihiro breathed, suddenly finding that the air around her was lacking in oxygen, a problem that could have been rectified rather easily if she could simply remember that she had forgotten to breathe again. However, to put it another way, when one is cruising down the road in the fast lane and one lazily sails past a few hard-driving cars and is feeling pretty pleased with oneself and then accidentally changes down from fourth to first instead of third this making one's engine leap out of one's hood in a rather ugly mess, it tends to throw one off of one's stride in much the same way that this realization threw Chihiro off hers. Not that she could drive stick. If her body had been capable of doing anything besides breathing, a task that was taking a goodly portion of her conscious at the moment, she would have smirked at the memory of her father attempting to teach her to drive stick shift. _Another instance of the infallibility of the Kicked-Puppy face._ She had gotten away with only a warning from an exasperated traffic officer. Her father was lucky to get away from the traffic intersection with only ten crescent shaped marks gouged into the dashboard and a small cardiac arrest as her car careened through a red light and stalled in the dead center of a four way crossing.

He had gotten an automatic transmission car the next day.

_That's immaterial now. There are other things to take care of. Think. Think. Kicked-Puppy face won't be of much use right now. That'll only guilt them further, not convince them that it's in their health's best interest if they recanted their words and told Kohaku that she had disappeared into some weird dimension between here and the next train station. Urgh. With my luck, he'd probably find a way to reappear in my life even in another dimension._ Ignoring the second pang of déjà-vu to hit her in the past few hours, Chihiro switched into her secondary defensive mode (the first having been Hurricane Chihiro).

"You're dead, you know?" She addressed Miya, whom she perceived as the lynchpin in this double dating scheme. _A lynchpin that'd I'd be more than happy to lynch, should the opportunity present itself…_

"Yeah, that's right, I just haven't stopped moving yet." Miya replied, regaining some of her normal cheekiness as she realized that Chihiro was too stunned to react fully. A tiny twinge of guilt issued through her as she wondered if they had gone a bit too far. Miya squashed the twinge as she had a smallish, pale vegetable in her dreams the previous night. She had simply chalked up the little diakon jumping around with a 'Bad Idea' sign as an aftereffect of the ramen she had eaten (daikon-flavor). "Now, we're meeting at 5:30 in front of the theatre, but dress nicely because we're going out to dinner before the film. We'll probably be out until around 9, so you'll have a couple of hours to finish what little homework our little genius has. That is, assuming that you aren't enough of an overachiever to have already finished your homework for the week. Anyway," She paused as the first bell rang. "Class is starting, so we probably should hurry. We have Trigonometry first, and knowing Mr. Noda, we'll probably end up having a pop quiz because Koichi-kun kept asking so many inane questions that it's impossible that he has paid any attention during class."

Miya turned to walk toward their homeroom, which was a fair distance away. It appeared that her friends had predicted Chihiro's ill-temper and had attempted to hide away in one of the lesser used hallways. Unfortunately for them, she had traced their movements. Fortunately for Chihiro, the distance involved meant that her diatribe had only reached the ears of the guilty parties. Unfortunately for all of them, this left them rather far from where they needed to be within the time they had. Five minutes, to be precise.

"Hey, wait." Sora frowned at looked at her watch quizzically. Her friends paused to look at her, equally confused. "Class starts at eight in the morning, right? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think we didn't hear the first bell over Chihiro-sama's annual State of the Nation-of-Chihiro speech," Chihiro scowled.

"United Mental Emirates of Chihiro, thank you." _Hey, if you're going attempt to say anything, check to make sure that your political statements are up to date. There is a slight penchant for rebellion and turmoil within the United Mental Emirates of Chihiro, and one never knows when it will become the North Cranial People's Republic of Chihiro…_

"My apologies, Prime Minister, but what you heard was the second bell. At the beep, we will have exactly thirty seconds to sprint madly in a futile dash to evade corporal or mental punishment. Beep." _That's Lady Prime Minister to you._

Chihiro, Miya and Satsu stared at Sora for two more seconds before their eyes widened in comprehension. _Wait. Late. Oh, hey, that rhymes. It rhymes! What am I thinking? I'm going to end up in the hallway! Missing class! Horror of all horrors!_ The United Mental Emirates of Chihiro refused to comment in their later press conference on the fact that one Chihiro may or may not have already skipped class the day previous.

"Twenty-eight seconds at the beep. Beep."

Their mouths opened. Failing to find anything suitable to say, their mouths closed again. They opened their mouths in another attempt.

"Twenty-five seconds at the tone. Beep."

Witnesses would later testify that they could have sworn that a hurricane of some sort seemed to have passed by. They claimed that it was followed by three smaller whirlwinds, but that only the first had caused their socks to become soggy lumps of cotton that squished rather unpleasantly for the remaining portion of their day. They also attempted to sue for damages. The United Mental Emirates of Chihiro, again, denied any involvement in the affair and redirected the upset mob to the haughty island-nation of Great Kohaku instead.

* * *

Chihiro was eating her lunch rather quietly. This was a particularly bad sign. A quiet Chihiro seemed innocent and sweet, but she was really just a ticking time bomb. If her lips weren't moving, her brain was busy working and if her brain was working, she might begin to think. And if she begins to think, she might take over the world. Hence, it was perfectly understandable that Miya was looking at Chihiro as if she was expecting an atomic bomb to go off, for Chihiro had not only been quiet through lunch. Oh no, she had been silent and studious through the inevitable pop quiz, had been silent through the allotted time for people to freak out and query Chihiro about questions 2, 4, and 39, and had been silent through the entire walk outside. 

"Chihiro-chan?" Miya questioned softly, as if expecting her tentatively outstretched hand to be bitten off in a bout of rage.

"Mm." Chihiro resolutely continued eating. _Yeah, now you decide to be considerate? A bit tardy, I think._ Under normal circumstances, Miya would have waited until Chihiro had finished eating, but today, she felt it too dangerous to leave Chihiro to plot.

"Chihiro-chan, if you would please just talk to us, I'll give you my mochi?" Miya looked over at Satsu and Sora for reassurance, but found that they had scooted backward from the leafy tree the foursome had been sitting under. Chihiro raised her eyes upwards but stubbornly refused to stop eating. _I'll listen. You owe me some darn good mochi for this!_ It was enough of a concession to Miya. "Come on, what do you have to lose? It's not like you could end up disliking poor Nigihayami-kun any more than you already do, and you might just hit it off!"

Chihiro narrowed her eyes as Vengence continued to whisper in the back of her mind. _Hit it off? The only person I want to off would be Kohaku! Can't I just hit him with a bat, hide the body and call it a day? Besides, it's not like becoming friends with him would help me become first in the class, get into a first-rate college or succeed at life by entering into a nice professional job. He'd just be one more person that I'd have to share my food with._

Miya sighed. This was obviously not going to be easy, but as Satsu and Sora was determined to remark on the weather to each other in excessively interested tones, ("My, it looks like the sun is going to reach its zenith soon." "Yes, doesn't it? It's no wonder that the sky is so blue when you think about the angles that the light from that bright of a sun would make when it reflects off of the atmosphere!"), it was left up to her to convince Chihiro to go out with her. It was really for Chihiro's own good, after all, and not at all because Miya herself wanted to see Hayori-kun. No, not at all.

"Come now, Chihiro-chan. Think this through. You're not number two in the class for nothing. If you're really deserving of the spot, you can find at least one good point in coming out with us tonight."

"Mfh." Chihiro's eyes flashed even as her exclamation was muffled by the rice in her mouth. Was Miya challenging her? _Toads.__ I'm caught. I can either keep eating and let my pride suffer, or I can meet Miya and give her more ammo to force me out tonight._ She swallowed.

"Does that mean even the Great and Almighty Prime Minister Chihiro-sama is unable to find a reason to come out with us?"

"What if the Great and Almighty Lady Prime Minister Chihiro-sama doesn't want to find a reason and thus chooses to keep eating?"

"Well, unless the Great and Almighty **Lady** Prime Minister Chihiro-sama has a secret fetish for Trigonometry, she manages to solve those problems despite her distaste for the situation." Miya was relieved. As long as Chihiro kept talking, Miya had a chance of backing her into a corner, at which point, Miya would throw as many umeboshi as necessary to get Chihiro to forget that Miya had manipulated her in the first place.

Chihiro made a little moue of distaste. She was smart enough to realize that she was trapped like a toad in the puffed-up, chasm-like stomach of a faceless monster that, in this case, was Miya's exploitation of the rudiments of Psychology. _Well, I suppose that if nothing else, I can get close enough for him to drop his guard. Or I could waste his time so that he won't be able to study effectively enough to beat me in the midterm examinations._

"I suppose," Chihiro voiced grudgingly, "that spending a little bit of time with him might help me understand the way he works better." _Yeah, the better I know him, the better I can beat him at this game!_

"Yeah, and if nothing else, you're getting a free meal out of this, Chihiro-chan."

"I suppose."

"Besides, I'll be there with Hayori-kun, so you're really just doing me a favor because you're such a good friend!" Miya beamed at Chihiro.

"You still owe me mochi. And you're going to treat me to a sundae, because I'm such a good friend!" Chihiro smirked at Miya, whose expression of triumph quickly vanished into one of astonishment. _I suppose I'll just make the best of the situation that I find myself in. Go with the flow._

* * *

_Augh__, I'm laaaaate!_

Chihiro scrambled down the stairs that led from her house atop the hill to the level plain of Yokto, a task made slightly more difficult by her two inch near-stiletto baby pink shoes. She refrained from shrieking as she nearly fell, but before she could fully exhale the breath she was holding in, the stone step she was standing on crumbled, forcing her to jump from the edge she had been standing on. This, she found herself in a head long hurtle toward the fast approaching end of the stairs. Chihiro had tucked her elbows in and had been concentrating on finding a way to slow down her momentum without having her face kiss concrete but she looked up momentarily only to wince.

**_Why_**_ must I use a **radish** as my patron god again?_

With a slightly muffled thud, Chihiro found herself smashed intimately with the wall that was across from the end of the stairs. She peeled herself away from the stones and shook her hear to clear her thoughts. Oddly enough, it felt like this experience wasn't as new to her as it should have been. Shaking aside the notion that nearly falling down stairwells was a normal occurrence for her with a small frown, Chihiro recalled that she was already late and continued her sprint.

She turned a few heads as she continued her sprint. After all, despite her bouts of clumsiness, Chihiro had never gotten less than top marks for physical education class. Seeing the corner that would lead her to the theatre, Chihiro slowed and smoothed her dress down. A pale cream with small, rosy flowers printed about the entire length, reaching from the thin straps to a few inches above her knees. Above the actual dress was another, slightly longer, gauzy, sheer covering that, instead of lying on top of her straps, lay off of her shoulders. Chihiro fiddled with the small flowers in her hair, palmed the choker around her neck and touched her earrings to make sure everything was in place, and finally turned the corner with a dainty smile. Only to frown again.

"Miya-chan?"

"Hey, Chihiro-chan." Miya looked up, visibly allayed by Chihiro's entrance. "How do I look?"

"Pretty, as always." Chihiro stuck out her tongue playfully at Miya's nervousness. "But you know, as pretty as you are, Miya-chan, I really don't swing this way, so maybe we should just remain friends?"

"Huh-" It took Miya a moment longer to catch the lilting tone under Chihiro's words that denoted sarcasm. "Well, I'm just crushed, Chihiro-chan. Here I am, confiding in you only to be rejected!"

"Sorry, love, but any prettiness that I'm attracted will definitely be of the male persuasion. I'll just have to keep rejecting your unwanted advances in quelling your affections for me."

"Oh, that makes perfect sense. You like pretty guys; Nigihayami-kun is a pretty guy; you turn him down…"

"Oi! I'm only here as a favor to you." Chihiro mock glared at Miya for getting the last blow. "Though at this rate, it looks like we've been stood up."

"That doesn't make sense. I mean, Hayori said that he'd…er…" Miya continued her sentence in a mutter, attempting to cover up her fluke. Chihiro was not fooled.

"Miya-"

"Oh, never mind. Here they come!" True to her word, Hayori and Kohaku were just rounding the corner that Chihiro had stood by moments ago.

"-don't understand why you can't simply ask someone else to come with you. You know, perhaps a **girl**?"

"Aw, Haku-kun, you mean that you don't want to spend team-bonding time with me?"

"Well, Yori-kun-" Kohaku broke off mid-sentence as his gaze landed on Miya and then Chihiro. His dark eyebrows dropped a few millimeters.

"Miya-chan! Chihiro-san! What an utter coincidence, seeing you two here! Isn't that just something, Haku-kun?"

Kohaku looked from Miya to Chihiro and then followed their gaze to Hayori. "Coincidence, eh?"

"Ahh, well, what can I say? Serendipity? You know, 'fortunate chance.' Besides, you don't really want to leave Ogino-san with Miya-chan and myself, do you?" Hayori looked uncertain, but hopeful.

Kohaku glanced back to Chihiro, happening to meet her eyes. Both blushed and looked away. Hayori offered Miya an arm and proceeded to lead her into the theatre. Kohaku blinked and reflexively did the same, adding a little flourish to his actions.

"Not much left but to do it, eh, Chihiro-san? If you would be so kind as to give me the honor of escorting you tonight."

Chihiro's mouth had formed a little circle of shock and she was still a bit slow on understanding exactly what plot had just been pulled off but hearing Kohaku's softly reassuring voice and looking into his glitteringly verdant eyes, she nodded mutely with a rosy blush to match her dress. Miya and Hayori grinned. Somewhere, bound to a chair, so did The-Little-Voice.

**Author's Addendum: Yeah, I really don't have any excuses. Six/Seven months of hiatus. I got lost on the road of life? Really…**

**But honestly, thank you to all the kind people who reviewed and got this chapter out. It's because I have such wonderful readers that I'm able to write this story.  
**

**I hope Chapter 6 wasn't a disappointment. It's a bit of a change because of the time gap in the writing, but I tried to keep the humor even while advancing the plot. I'd really appreciate any comment on whether or not this style works, or if people prefer the lighter side of Chihiro from past chapters.**

**Until the stars shine above us once more.**

**071004**

**Added Note: As of March 24, 2006, this story has been purged of review responses per the new policy of the host site. I probably would have left them in but quite frankly, I was getting sick of people complaining about their lengths. I am not dead, though I sometimes wish I was. I do intend to finish this story and I will reply to all emails/reviews in any way I can once I get the next chapter up. Which WILL be soon. **


	7. To Woes and Wednesdays

**Changes: **To Woes and Wednesdays

**Disclaimer: Not mine. Well, not yet, anyway.**

She hated this. The food was terrible, the restaurant sleazy and the company lacking. Or so Chihiro kept telling herself, hoping that if she said it enough times, it would come true. _Well, it worked for that beetle guy in that one American movie. And for that girl in the book about moving castles. I mean, it can't hurt, can it?_

The problem, Chihiro had long since observed, was that everything had been planned with military precision. She had been right in observing that Miya was not one to take prisoners. She had instructed the boys to meet them at the theatre, with tickets in hand. Chihiro hadn't even been allowed the semblance of it not being a double date. _I didn't even get to have a say in the movie_, she grumbled internally. It was probably a good choice of Miya's to have pre-arranged it, for Chihiro had intended to argue for the newly released chainsaw massacre horror movie in from the States. Miya had let slip her less-steely-more-squishy nerves to Chihiro once, and the latter girl had every intention of taking advantage of all information reserves at this point.

Not that Miya wasn't doing the same. The four of them were sitting in a classy restaurant, decorated in the style of Ye Olde Japan. The waitresses were dressed in kimono and the tables were sectioned off by rice-paper sliding walls. To be forthright about her experiences (something Chihiro attempted to have happen infrequently and discreetly), she had been here multiple times with Miya since the restaurant had opened shortly after her family had moved to the small town. It was no great secret that it was her favorite place to eat, given the option and her father's credit card. Something about the atmosphere was very calming to her; normally, it soothed Chihiro to be among the quiet bustle.

_But there shouldn't be anything 'normal' or 'calm' or 'familiar' about him being here! _Chihiro's mind strained to stay alert in the cloying incense that filled the air. For the life of her, she could not understand how this single male – _though a perfect specimen of what all males should be…erk. _Another mental slap. Chihiro had quite forgotten the tally by now. It was official: the world hated her, her friends had turned traitor and she was being manipulated and used most horribly. There was a simple solution to this.

_Take over the world! Find new, better, friends! String Kohaku up by his toes and watch him squirm!_ Ok, so the last one really didn't have much to do with her previous complaints, but the boy was simply too perfect. It was impossible. Chihiro had done her best to undo his façade through the entire evening. _The Masterful Downfall of Kohaku's Pristine Reputation Plan._ Personally, Chihiro felt that the title lacked her normal pizzazz, but she, predictably, blamed it on Kohaku's draining presence. _No! Mustn't be taken in by the beautiful he-devil!_

And so Operation Invade Greater Kohaku was launched. It had been a veritable blitzkrieg. Well, if 'blitzkrieg' could still be used to describe the outcome of Germany's invasion if it had been met with nuclear missiles facing them at the Czech border. There had been the expensive snack tab (which he'd volunteered immediately to pay for), the "accidental" positioning of gum right by his seat (which he'd miraculously avoided during the entire duration), the hot peppers in the nachos (which he'd completely not noticed), the huddling as far away from his as possible in hopes of making people think he was mentally abusing her (he had offered his jacket because she'd looked cold), and the attempt to escape via the bathroom (he had chosen to escort her there and back). And so, she'd been forced to sign the post-war concession and simply go along with the double date as if it'd been her idea in the first place.

And so here she was, blinking as she just realized that Kohaku had beat out Hayori in paying for the check. Neither she nor Miya had been fooled when the two boys excused themselves to 'use the bathroom' towards the end of the meal, but had assumed that they would split the bill. From what Hayori was saying, though, Kohaku hadn't given him a chance – he'd smiled at the waitress before plunking down a little piece of plastic. She'd been so smitten with the pretty boy that she hadn't even noticed that Hayori had been there until she'd returned for a signature.

"It was like she was in a daze! Ne, Kohaku-kun, that was just unfair!" Hayori was playing up the righteous anger factor and Miya giggled. _Traitor_. "I'm indignant."

Kohaku laughed an easy laugh that seemed both to constrict Chihiro's heart and amplify it in her ears at the same time. Someday, she would have to work out exactly how her body managed that. "Moral indignation is just jealousy with a halo, Hayori-kun." Chihiro snorted and quickly stifled the sound. Not only was it unladylike and improper, she was most certainly _not_ laughing at something Kohaku had said. No. She was laughing at…at…okay, well, it had been slightly amusing. But Kohaku making a joke, much less a funny one? She was going to chalk it up to dumb luck on his part.

As she scooped the last of her green tea ice cream into her mouth, she saw Miya glancing down at her watch. A sense of danger seemed to be rising. Which was odd, because as far as Chihiro could see, she was in the clear. She'd survived the movie and had managed to be reasonably pleasant through dinner. Now, she could just go home and-

"Well, we should probably head back then. It's rather late already and even though tomorrow is a half day, we still have to be there for the morning." Miya was avoiding Chihiro's eyes. She'd never really mastered the innocent look. Triumphantly victorious, yes. Smug, yes. But the closest Miya had come to looking innocent was 'thoroughly confused.' Granted, sometimes 'thoroughly confused' worked better than 'innocent,' but it also triggered a myriad of alarms in Chihiro's head. Dropping her spoon, Chihiro searched for another, preferably sharper, weapon. But it was too late.

"Oh, that's true. Let me walk you home, Miya-chan? It's on my way, anyway." Chihiro wondered how much Hayori was in for. There had to be some sort of pay-off for him. _Probably just the fringe benefits__that come from Miya being inanely happy_.

"Then, Kohaku-kun, would you mind…" Miya trailed off unnecessarily as Kohaku smiled at her and nodded.

Perhaps Hayori was worried that Miya's feelings would go the way of the waitress if she kept staring at Kohaku's smile, but no matter the reason, they disappeared so quickly that Chihiro wondered if their feet had actually touched ground in their haste. _Maybe they've been transported to a parallel dimension, where they'll get a taste of their own medicine? Or to another world, where they'll have to atone for their sins by working as menial servants in a bathhouse!_ Chihiro froze in the act of standing up. Bathhouse. Kohaku had asked about a bathhouse recently. She'd been dumbfounded then, but now that she thought about it, there was something oddly familiar about that word.

"Chihiro-san?" Her eyes snapped upward and she was surprised to see Kohaku's face inches from her own. Blinking rather rapidly in surprise at his proximity, she accidentally stepped on the spoon she'd dropped, and promptly made a rather ridiculous looking face as she realized she was slipping and falling backwards away from Kohaku. _Well, at least I didn't fall forward and end up kissing him accidentally or anything_, she thought stupidly as she prepared for a rapid greeting from the floor. If she was going to become intimate with something, she preferred it to be the tatami mat.

Somewhere in the unlit portion of her mind, a small figure crossed out a ratio (Chihiro: Zero. World: Six Hundred and Two) and wrote neatly underneath it, "Chihiro: One. World: Six Hundred and Two."

With inhuman reflexes, Kohaku lunged forward, wrapping one arm around her shoulder and the other behind her head. When she realized that her first kiss would not be with the tatami mat, Chihiro opened her eyes (when had she closed them, for that matter?) and found herself looking into Kohaku's glassy, verdant ones.

This was It. There was no escaping It. His lips were slowly descending and his arms were holding her body in place. Her mind, along with all of her muscles, suddenly decided to go on strike in Tahiti. Now she felt herself being lifted towards him. She shut her eyes again, sure that her face was probably bright enough to be seen from the international space station.

Only to realize that she was now upright. And that she was being asked if she was quite alright. He hadn't been leaning in for a kiss – he'd been pulling her straight. Reeling from the event of the past thirty seconds, Chihiro nodded mutely and immediately felt a warmth leave her. She realized that Kohaku had removed his arms from her, effectively removing her from his embrace. The room seemed oddly colder now.

"I'm…I'm fine, thank you." She finally managed, smiling weakly up at him. There was an intensity in his eyes that Chihiro was certain she'd never seen before. She was distracted from this observation by an unfamiliar, leaden feeling in her stomach. It felt like disappointment, but why would she be disappointed? She'd just narrowly avoided It, it should have been cause for celebration. She scowled internally at the empty feeling inside of herself where she'd expected fanfare. What was the point of multiple personalities if they couldn't throw a good parade after an unexpected victory?

"That's good to hear. Shall we be off, then?" He was holding out her coat for her. His eyes, Chihiro realized, were back to being friendly as always. Though this was how she had always experienced them –_not that I've been looking at them avidly or anything!_- she felt that there was almost something lacking in them.

As she stepped outside into the cold night air, Chihiro vaguely wondered exactly how much she knew of her supposed rival. It certainly wasn't much. He was athletic, popular, friendly and intelligent, but he had no really close friends and spoke little of his past. And yet, all thoughts of protesting his escorting her home were gone from her mind. At this point, if nothing else, Chihiro would normally have been attempting to make conversation to ease her nerves, but somehow, the silent walk was more than comforting. It was achingly familiar, like a dream yet unrealized. _But that's being silly. I woke up this morning dreaming about flying whales, not walking home with an enigma. At least, I think I dreamt of flying whales. Maybe it was about umeboshi? Well, whatever – it was a happy dream, certainly not about a confusing puzzle of a boy._

She recognized the shape of her house looming ahead of them as they stepped off the main path to a smaller one. Where did all the time go when she was with this boy? It seemed like a century had passed since she'd left, but it had hardly been six hours. They'd drawn up to the front door by now and Chihiro found herself becoming nervous. She knew how dates ended, but she wasn't sure what she wanted. Kohaku was her sworn enemy, her rival, her opposite. So then, why was she disappointed when he'd simply set her upright in the restaurant? Bracing herself, she turned to face him, only to find him staring up at the stars.

With boldness that she didn't really feel, Chihiro took a step forward to stand next to him. She followed his gaze. "They seem almost magical, don't they?" _Ack, that's not what I meant to say! Well, I don't know what I meant to say, but all the same, that wasn't it!_

"Magical? Yes." Kohaku replied slowly before reaching a hand out above his head, toward the glimmering lights. "They're so high and mysterious." _Hah! The pot calling the kettle black!_. "It's almost as if they're alive with emotions. With memories long forgotten." He paused and looked down at her, dropping his hand.

That intensity was back in his eyes and it made the breath in Chihiro's lungs catch. "Do you know, a memory is what is left when something happens and does..not…completely…unhappen." Which each of the last words, Kohaku had closed the distance between them until the intensity was boring into Chihiro with a fervent hope. His words became progressively softer as she felt each breath on her face.

She marveled that she was in the same predicament she'd been in only two days previously, after the football game. And the same one she'd been in just a few minutes agi. Except this scene was taking place on her front step, placing it within the jurisdiction of the Daddy-with-a-Shotgun system of justice. Not that her father had a shotgun, but if he'd chosen to look out the window at this moment, she felt reasonably secure in saying that he'd want one. And perhaps a tank, for good measure. Daddy was protective of his women.

She reached up a hand. _It's only to brush away that strand of hair from his eye!_ She was hypersensitive to the charge in the night, so when he tilted his head to lean into her touch, she took a sharp intake of air. And then, something inside of her just clicked. She felt as if her body was a ten ton lump of coal moving through molasses as she pushed herself forward and up.

It was nothing like she'd imagined. He didn't pull away and to her utmost surprise, she didn't either. She slid her right hand up into the hair at the top of his neck while her other one hovered uncertainly on his shoulder. His hands showed no such indecision and one went to circle her waist and the other her shoulders, pulling her decisively close to him while tattooing a sensual pattern on her hip.

Chihiro had kissed him without any idea of what she was looking for and for a moment, it had been her awkward stamina that sustained the encounter. She supposed, vaguely, that she'd intended to pull back after a brief, chaste kiss. Kohaku, in contrast, hesitated only for a moment, as if struggling with an internal crisis before pursuing whatever he was looking for with abandon.

It seemed that whatever it was, it was located very, very deeply down Chihiro's throat. Not in the least dissuaded, he parted his own lips slightly and ran his tongue lightly over her bottom lip. Chihiro had been surprised, but not really that stunned. She knew what a kiss involved, even if the actual mechanics had been previously unknown to her.

She was more astonished by the fact that she didn't really mind. Nay – that she was responding to his fervent emotion with her own! It was as if something inside of her had been unclogged and with a sigh and a gurgle, all of her pent-up emotion was being released. Of course, that sigh and gurgle could also have just been her body betraying her, but Chihiro found that Kohaku was rather persuasive and couldn't really find it within her to be upset.

Though that didn't stop her eyebrows from going up as his tongue swirled alongside her own, igniting a wave of warmth that coursed through her. A summer breeze picked up, surprisingly strong for the calm weather they'd been experiencing until now. Chihiro found the warmth of Kohaku's body in contrast to the chill of the rushing air to be almost intoxicating.

So when he finally began to pull away, she felt lightheaded and just slightly dizzy. She wasn't sure if that was a testament to his kissing or if she'd simply forgotten how to breathe. Her left hand was still clutching him to her as if she were falling and he were a parachute while her right hand had migrated to nest in his hair. Blinking a couple of times at the change, the embarrassment from her gumption raced through her and she attempted to push herself away from his very well toned chest.

At least, that's what her brain told her spinal cord. But the signal must have been misdirected or simply overwritten, as she moved forward and found that the crook of his neck was a heretofore yet undiscovered piece of heaven – one that she'd very little intention of leaving, thank you very much. Inhaling, she found herself nuzzling in deeper to catch more of the woody, but clean scent that she'd come to associate with the boy.

A couple of heartbeats passed as time seemed to slowly shift back into focus. Chihiro repressed making a small mewl of unhappiness when she realized that heaven was moving away from her. She found herself staring into his impossibly green eyes again, breath catching and eyes closing as she expected an encore performance. So it was disappointment that washed over her when she felt only a soft kiss pressed to her forehead.

"It's late." He murmured, and she briefly felt the words rumbling in his chest before he pulled away, gently nudging her toward the door.

On autopilot, she took two steps toward the door and began to open it, as if by some unvoiced command communicated through the soft whisper of a kiss. She turned back to look over her shoulder, her mouth forming the beginnings of words she wasn't quite sure of. But he was gone and the emptiness of the porch loomed in front of her.

She stared at the spot where he'd been only a moment ago before she slipped through the door, closing it softly behind her and locking it. Raising a hand to her lips, she slid down the wooden frame to the floor. She had….He had…And if…_I don't even want to finish those sentences! I don't even want to have started those sentences! I want all of them, and their dependent clauses, to go far, far away and never come back!_

_

* * *

_

It was unthinkable. Chihiro furrowed her brow until there was a possibility of growing smaller root vegetables in it. Well, she did need a new patron god. Perhaps an ark-full of them, given the way today had started out. If she was titling the days of her life, today would be "Waking up, and then regretting it."

Wednesday was supposed to be the oasis of the week, being a half-day and all. The point where everyone let out that breath they'd been holding since Monday. For Chihiro, it was fast becoming a sanctioned day of worship. The Temple of Chihiro was steadily burning incense while still hoisting a solid gold statue of a sentient Radish Being into place. Chihiro had decided to name him 'Bob.' Bob was a good solid name for a god, especially as Chihiro's newfound faith believed that bigger really was better – Bob was roughly the size of a house.

She'd diagnosed her previous deity problems: a small god meant a squishable god. So, in blowing her patron saint up a few stories, she felt that she had solved at least one of her problems today.

And it seemed that 'one' was, by sheer coincidence, also exactly the number of exams that she had forgotten she was taking on this very holy day.

She let her head hit the desk with a muffled thunk as the exams were passed forward to be collected by the teacher. Even as she attempted to perform today's prayer (a series of highly ritualized taps on her desk, as performed by her forehead), she could see Miya squirming in her seat. Class had technically ended a few minutes ago, but the teacher was giving some broad advice about "not ruining their futures by slacking off with dates or some such nonsense."

There were small murmurs of conversation amongst the students as he spoke distractedly while counting the exam packets. Satsu and Sora were whispering softly between themselves, but had seemingly decided to show mercy to Chihiro. Every time Miya opened her mouth, one of the girls would give her a pointed look.

_Trying to remain quiet for these past five minutes must have been an awful trial._ Chihiro thought, somewhat uncharitably of Miya. Even if it was true.

The teacher dismissed them all for the day and Chihiro resolutely kept up with her thumping, deciding to add in a narration of her day, hoping that Bob would take mercy if presented with an itemized list of undeserved wrongs. _Let me explain to you the complex known as Miya, Bob. Yamato Miya is a girl of many talents and faults. Well, that's not quite right. Let's just say she's a girl of many faults. There, much better._

"Right, so, let's get down to business?" Chihiro wasn't sure if the thumping was helping along or delaying the headache she felt coming on. She kept it up, just in case. Maybe she could convince the nurse she had a concussion and was an amnesiac – that might delay the she-wolves a bit.

"Chihiro-chan, really! We're on your side." Satsu piped up, entirely too chipper for the occasion, in Chihiro's mind.

"Yeah, who do you think is left to fend off the rumors?" Sora added with a wide gesture that had been precisely calculated to be equal parts reassuring and innocent, but somehow still came off as practiced and predatory.

"Come on, try us before condemning us!" Satsu made a moue of annoyance as Chihiro showed no signs of responding, much less noticing them.

"Hmm…" Chihiro wondered, resting her head against the desk at last. "Let me think…how many times have you been in the room when said rumors about, say, Kohaku and the relationship between your unsuspecting best friend were being birthed, without your saying anything about the falsehood of the whole thing, much less encouraging them?"

"Not that many!" Satsu assured her, and then blinked as Chihiro glared up at her, "I mean, almost none at all. Really."

"By curious coincidence, Satsu," Chihiro replied tightly, " 'none at all' is **precisely** how much I believe you on that." _Precisely how many believability points you get on that one._

"Chihiro-chan," Miya, unfazed, began in a long-suffering tone. "Have you noticed the number of girls in our homeroom? You know, the ones that all saw Kohaku talk to you after the football game? The ones who sniff out drama better than bloodhounds?"

Chihiro felt her eyes follow those of her three friends, to rest on a gaggle of nearby schoolgirls. It was impossibly not to know who Miya was referring to. They preened and went 'ark' at Bob-knows-what. _Alright, so technically, they powder their noses and squawked at every minute bit of gossip. And okay, so maybe that was a bit harsh - 'ark' is only said on the days when they feel like challenging themselves with some higher form of cognition._

"And you know, they've been keeping an eye out on you. I think that Akari-chan was talking about how she was also planning to go to the movie theatre last night, and she is looking over here an awful lot now."

"An awful, awful lot."

"Yeah, an awful terrible lot."

"So it may be in your best interests to just come with us. Why don't we go somewhere for lunch? I'll buy you sushi – I've been meaning to go to Yokohama's for a while now…" Miya continued her wheedling, adding in bits about food, gossip and the promise of new clothes. "…I mean, unless you don't want to avoid talking to Mr. Perfect, who looks like he's about to come over here."

Chihiro hadn't seemed too enthused at what she was suggesting…right up until she mentioned that it would take her away from an approaching Kohaku. At that point, she would have cheerfully agreed to being lit on fire.

"Well, what're we waiting for, girls! Sushi isn't going to just eat itself, you know! But it may just decide to become ambulatory, so we'd best go catch it before it decides to try! You know, with evolution and all, you can never be sure!" She really wasn't fooling anyone, Chihiro knew, but she could be forgiven. _Anything could be forgiven, just as long as I don't have to see Kohaku again this century!_

Tsunami-Chihiro shoved all of her things into her bag in a most unceremonious manner before grabbing both Miya and Satsu by the elbows and dragging them out – using Miya as a forward shield and Satsu as a rear guard, just in case anyone was near. Sora tittered a bit at the picture they made until Chihiro shot a Glare o' Doom, level 4, on her. In short order, all four of the girls were out the door, much to the disappointment of at least one gossip-bird.

In truth, Chihiro wasn't sure how she'd managed to escape the room unscathed. She felt that it was simply Too Easy. The capital letters being, of course, there to symbolize another of the plots the world was certainly going to throw against her. _I'd like a green tea with two cubes of paranoia, please? _Chihiro entered the small establishment, so conveniently located near the school.

Settling down at the counter of the revolving sushi bar, Chihiro relaxed enough to poke fun at herself a little bit. It was kind of nice to be able to laugh at herself. Maybe this is why Miya did it so often. Picking up her chopsticks, she began to twirl them haphazardly while humming an off tune beat to herself. Maybe, just maybe, it would be alright to relax for a simple meal. _It would be an insult to have anything nagging at my appetite, especially if Miya's footing the bill!_

"So, you got some?"

Chihiro jerked to a halt, sending one chopstick flying just past Sora's head. It had been purely accidental. She'd have aimed for Miya, given the choice.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Chihiro replied stiffly. Miya replied by lightly tossing one of her own chopsticks at her, hitting her square in the forehead.

"Really! It's none of your business anyway, and hey!" Chihiro exclaimed as Satsu grabbed her remaining chopstick away as she took aim. _If you can't take a chopstick to the face, you shouldn't be throwing them in a sushi restaurant! _She promptly snatched the one still remaining in Miya's hand.

"You need to be careful with those." Satsu warned.

"I didn't do anything to deserve that." Miya exclaimed, sensing that 'careful' was not at all how Chihiro was intending to use the chopstick. She didn't really know what 'that' was, but with Chihiro, it was better to cover all her bases - even if it meant pre-emptively complaining.

"These can be dangerous, you know. It's for your own safety." _You're safe if you're dead, right?_ Chihiro liked her logic.

"I'm perfectly safe." Miya protested indignantly. _Not if I can help it._

"Says the girl who nearly blinded someone." Chihiro retorted as she took aim and lobbed it at Satsu.

"Says the girl lusting after her rival." Sora piped up as they were served their tea.

Chihiro glowered into it, good thoughts of blinding her friends swept out of her head, trying to think of a witty way out of the situation. She hadn't come all the way out here just to be interrogated by a different set of girls. She still hadn't forgotten the betting pool. There was revenge to be had. Towns to decimate. Women to make cower in fear…_oh, and the revolving sushi to eat! _

Chihiro felt this was a good point to enlighten her friends of the fact that almighty Bob had declared that she, Chihiro, was to have first pick of the sushi. The ebi roll was looking particularly tasty today.

"And when did this happen, exactly?"

"Yesterday, when you weren't looking." Chihiro replied easily, snatching the desired piece deftly with another pair of pilfered chopsticks. "Have faith," She continued, dipping it in soy sauce, "Or Burn."

They decided to let her have her pick of the sushi. Seemed easiest. There were a few moment of silence as the other girls chewed thoughtfully.

Satsu finally voiced what they were all thinking. "This planet you live on, Chihiro-chan, is it very nice?"

On another day, Chihiro might have actually appreciated Satsu's wit, but as it happened, she was too busy wishing Miya was rather heavily drugged and tied up in Cambodia somewhere, and thius was in no mood to applaud her friend for her excellent use of sarcasm. "Considering you're nowhere on it, yes."

"Come on, Chihiro-chan, you can still hear us out, even if you're eating enough for two." _Doesn't mean I have to acknowledge it, oh and hey – enough with the baby jokes already. Someday, someone's going to take you seriously and I don't know about you girls, but I am not looking forward to having THAT talk with my father.  
_

"It's not unhealthy, what you're feeling. Kohaku's a perfectly normal, incredibly well-defined demi-god of a male. You could do worse. A lot worse!"

"Hey Chihiro-chan." Sora's voice was thoughtful. _Thoughtful is never good. _"You were with Miya-chan and Hayori-kun for the entire evening, right? So, I mean, it's not like we wouldn't know everything that Miya-chan saw. I'm sure you realize that. And the only time you were left alone was on the way home, right? But you're being really rather defensive about this whole thing. What's the point?" _Oh. Um. Oh dear. Maybe they won't follow through on this thought process?_

Satsu's face took on a shrewd look. "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."

Sora's face took on a surprised look. "So that means…"

Miya's face took on a predatory look that had Chihiro pausing in her eating. "Chihiro-chan." She enunciated each syllable so clearly that Chihiro felt her hackles rising.

This was not what Chihiro wanted to be doing right now. Or ever. She felt herself drawing in a bit as Miya and the girls looked at her expectantly. _Can't they understand that I've had a trying day – well, a trying week, to be accurate. I don't need this after bombing today's test!_ That wasn't entirely accurate – Chihiro certainly hadn't failed the exam, but still. She wasn't going to be interrogated about Kohaku in the wake of this travesty!

"Oh come on, are you sulking about the test today? You know you probably got a perfect anyway!" Satsu read the expressions crossing Chihiro's face like a small, and not particularly challenging, book.

"Or at least in the top five." Sora added helpfully.

"The top five is not up to standard!" Chihiro replied tightly.

"The wonderful thing about standards is there are so many of them to choose from, Chihiro-chan!" Miya sing-songed, figuring that a happier Chihiro might be a more gossipy Chihiro.

"You're just parroting that from somewhere," Chihiro accused, quite correctly.

"Yeah, but does that really matter? C'mon Chihiro-chan, talk to us! We're your best, sweetest and most caring friends!"

"Not to mention your only friends." Sora spoke in an upbeat tone that didn't match her words.

Not that it wasn't true. Chihiro had never really been much of a people person. She'd been living in this town for a couple of years now, and other than these three girls, there weren't many people she could honestly call 'friends.' It was almost as if moving here had caused an entirely different Chihiro to emerge – one that was more self-protecting and cold than the open-hearted, warm girl that had entered the car.

_Actually, _Chihiro mused sullenly_, I've only been friends with them since high school started. Since the whole rivalry thing started._ Though they'd all gone to the same junior high, Chihiro, as the top ranking student, had been surrounded by a wall of polite, but impenetrable, silence. She'd learned to enjoy the respectful looks she'd been given, and to ignore the sometimes spiteful whispers behind her back. The best way to prevent being hurt, in her opinion, was to leave no weakness for anyone to use against you.

That had all changed when Kohaku had waltzed into her life. Suddenly, she was given her humanity back, and, as if her contract with the devil had been broken, she was surrounded by cheerful, friendly people. Chihiro hadn't any idea what to do, at first, but Miya was pretty much a self-combusting fireball of energy. And when Miya had decided to be friends with Chihiro, there was no persuading her otherwise. Chihiro had tried. It wasn't that Miya wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, it was more like she refused to even hear the word.

And so, she'd given in. And then, before she'd known it, Satsu and Sora had appeared, and well, life just went on. It wasn't as hard as she thought it would be – not that Chihiro had ever really entrusted much to any of them. They were friends, but there was still a small barrier – a remnant from some past event that Chihiro couldn't recall.

And this would take down that barrier. Talking to them about something that she was **uncertain** about? Chihiro was used to giving advice – not having to solicit it! A small part of her wondered if she wasn't being childish about withholding this information, but at the same time, she couldn't bring herself to put her confusion into words.

"Chi-chan! You still in there? You've stopped eating…" Satsu bent her head to try to meet Chihiro's eyes.

"I hate being called that and you know it!" Chihiro said, lacking any real vindictiveness, despite her attempt.

"Mou, you're so uptight! Relax a little. You need a nickname already." Satsu rolled her eyes before thinking of an alternate. "Sen! From now on you're Sen." Chihiro started and stared at Satsu, feeling a sense of rising déjà vu.

"What?" Sora looked lost.

"Well, she's Little Miss Sensible, so I thought I'd shorten it, and it worked out really well when I realized that 'Sen' can also be from the same kanji as her name, so why not?"

"Hmm. Alright. Sen it is – but Sen-chan sounds funny, so I'm just going to call you Sen, okay?" Sora smiled over at Chihiro, who nodded in a daze.

It was as if there was too much that was just barely out of Chihiro's grasp. She didn't understand anything anymore. She hadn't understood anything of her neatly ordered universe ever since Kohaku had shown up, uprooting all of her beliefs!

"I've – I've got to go." Chihiro threw down a couple of bills before grabbing her bag and running out of the restaurant. There would be hell to pay with Miya later, but that was fine. She needed to think, preferably somewhere quiet and unused. When Satsu had declared her to be Sen, Chihiro had heard another voice. _"From now on, you shall be called Sen. Do you understand, Sen?"_ _But who was that? What was that?_

She slowed her run down, gulping in deep breaths of air in an effort to calm both her burning lungs and her restless mind. Still walking along the main road, she shook her head to clear it of these silly thoughts. _It's probably just me being tired and stressed. Yes, that's it._

She felt a gust of wind hit her suddenly from the side and turned so that her back bore the brunt – only to find herself staring down an old path. There were weeds growing up from between the stones, and there was a pile of what looked liked old, stone birdhouses stacked up on the side. Chihiro felt a tingle go down her spine as they all seemed to suddenly loom nearer. _A car. We raced down this street in Daddy's blue Honda. But we sold that car almost right after we got here – it became all rusted and covered in weeds after… After what? I don't know._

She shook her head again. _Alright, think, Chihiro think. It was the day we moved here. And Daddy wanted to take a short cut. I was in the backseat, with a bouquet. Oh, right, the farewell bouquet that I got from my classmates. And I thought I was going to die – I was so scared and Daddy was going so fast. It was bumpy. And then, a sudden stop and a tunnel. There was something past a tunnel. But when we came back out, the car was filthy. Daddy thought it was a practical joke from the kids nearby. It took him ages to trust the neighbors' kids afterward. He still doesn't let Susumu-kun near the garage. But where…_

"Where did the tunnel lead?"

Chihiro whirled around at the voice. The dreaded voice. Somewhere, deep inside, a small voice protested that this was Chihiro's creepy mystery case to solve, and not his. He could take his pretty green eyes to seduce some other teenage sleuth, thank you very much.

"You! But…you? How did you know what…Do you know about…" Chihiro spluttered before settling for, "Stalking is illegal in this country, in case you didn't know." She narrowed her eyes before turning decisively on her heel and continuing up a different path, leading well away from the eerie path.

She half expected him to say something, or even try to stop her. _Surely after…after last night, he's not going to just leave our interaction at this brilliant conversation starter. _She braved a glance back and saw that he was, yet again, mysteriously gone. Deciding that she had already signed up for one mystery case, she put off thinking about his oddities until later. Her stomach rumbled in agreement – the three pieces of sushi she'd managed to get past her rebelling throat weren't enough to satiate it.

Sighing quietly to herself, she continued walking up to the blue house on the top of the hill. This was not turning out to be a good week. Chihiro was a fan of Murphy. His laws made sense – "anything that can go wrong, will" was her favorite. _But really, at this point, Murphy be damned. I can't see how things can possibly get worse. Do your worst, Universe!_ A distant rumble of thunder met her dark thoughts.

Giggling a bit nervously at the Universe's apparent readiness for battle, Chihiro scampered up the remaining bit of sidewalk left. Reaching her front porch, she resolutely and guiltlessly squashed any memory, however vague, from being dredged up. She was going to eat lunch, get her homework out of the way, and only **then** would she try to think out where her world had gone, how she'd ended up in this parallel universe, and, if possible, a way to get back to her own universe – _all before dinner._ She wasn't number one in her class for nothing.

_But you're actually number two._ A small voice piped up.

_Otherworldly creatures don't count_. Chihiro retorted smartly as she removed her shoes, following her nose to the kitchen.

"I'm home! What's for lunch, Mom?" Chihiro stopped in her tracks. Her father usually worked on Wednesdays, and yet, here he was. Never mind the fact that he was dressed down – meaning that he'd not been into work all day.

Her father's jeans were vibrantly blue and went well with his shirt. At least, as well as anything could go with something that seemed to consist of almost every color of the rainbow, plus a few extra thrown in for good measure. His brilliant shirt did not, however, match his somber expression.

"Uh, hi, Dad?" Chihiro started, bewildered and slightly panicked. Her father only dressed like a madman when he was very upset. She hadn't seen him this way since the make-up incident. She still hadn't understood how a man wearing a neon pink shirt had gotten away with telling off his daughter about the 'impressions one's appearance gave others.' _And really, it wasn't THAT much make-up…_

"Chihiro-chan, your father and I would like to talk to you." Her mother, if in a concerted effort to confuse Chihiro, seemed to be bubbling over with joy.

"Um, ok?"

"Chihiro-chan. That was a boy at our door last night." Her father's voice was low, and grave.

_Damn you, Murphy!_

**Author's Addendum: See? Not dead yet. And it's a nice, long chapter. I have no idea how many times I wrote, scrapped and rewrote this. It's hard to transition into the actual plot when it's so much easier to write humorous fluff.**

**I'll do my best to keep it light and funny, when I can though. My writing style is going to be changing as I write it – it's inevitable. If you can't handle that, I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do for it. I think it's for the better, really.**

**My goal is to have the next chapter out within a month. Look for it on August 21st.  
**

**Thank you to all the reviewers out there, and the people who've added this story to C2s. I'm torn because while reviews make me feel horribly guilty about not writing, they're also wonderful forms of feedback. It's your call, really.**

**If you've enjoyed this chapter, and this story, I also recommend reading "Frozen Moonlight" by JaneDrew (Rurouni Kenshin), A Fox and a Shark Walk Into a Bar by GigaBomb (Naruto), and Draco Malfoy the Amazing Bouncing…Rat? By Sharon Armstrong (Harry Potter). They're all sources of inspiration that I feel I should cite. The HP story may be better found by using Google to find the link to Shnoogle's page for it. I'll eventually get around to adding them to my favorites…**

**Thanks for your support.**

**Until we meet again.**

**080806**


	8. To Thoughts and Thursdays

**Changes**

Chapter 8: **To Thoughts and Thursdays**.

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

This one goes out to **Aishuu.**

Silence was crushing the room and would take no prisoners.

Chihiro took the opportunity to reflect on the fact that she didn't think she appreciated her father's observational skills. Actually, she was pretty sure that she absolutely hated them with the passion of a handful of undying suns. Preferably the really big kind that eventually went 'boom' and effectively removed discussions like this from people's lives. Technically, they also removed people's lives altogether, but Chihiro wasn't in a mood to be picky.

"Well?"

_ So much for 'no prisoners.'_ Chihiro fidgeted a little bit under the stares of both of her parents. What could she say? Outright lying wasn't an option – she firmly believed that in another life, her mother had been a lie detector. _When all else fails, hide within the truth!_

"Yes, it was. He's a class representative with me. He was just walking me back because it was dark out. Is that sukiyaki over there?" _Okay, so technically, it's 'hide within the truth and offers of food.' _

"Chihiro-chan, this isn't the time for sukiyaki." Her father gave her a very grave look and Chihiro felt her stomach sink to the level of her knees. Her father never turned down food. Ever. It had gotten him in trouble many times before – once, he'd wandered into a bakery and decided to sample all the pies while waiting for the attendant to return. He'd eaten four pies (two apple, one cherry and one pumpkin) before a hysterical shopkeeper had informed him that they were entries for a contest. Chihiro scowled. Her father always brought trouble. Another time, he had –

"Chihiro-chan, there's no need to make that face. Really, your father is simply being silly." Chihiro rounded on her mother with an expression of utter relief. _Finally, someone's on my side!_

Her father snorted and crossed his arms across his chest. Chihiro's spirits lifted. Bob be praised, her luck was changing!

"He seems like such a nice boy. We should have him over for dinner." _Damn you again, Murphy._ In all fairness, it wasn't Murphy's fault her mother wanted grandchildren, but, again, Chihiro wasn't in a mood to be picky.

"He's nothing of the sort! He's-"

"A plague upon my household! How dare he think he can so much as touch my baby girl! All boys are vile creatures – they're untrustworthy, I tell you!" _Yeah, that's the spirit! Down with boys! Tell it like it is, Father!_ Chihiro paused, reflected upon the fact that she was agreeing with a man in a lurid Hawaiian print shirt, and wisely decided to retract her comments.

"Honey, you were young once too." Her mother smiled indulgently at him.

"I was never like these hooligans – they're all only interested in one thing! One thing, I tell you." Chihiro felt her face flush. _Please tell me he's not going to go there…please, for the love of Bob…_

"Nonsense. He seems like a respectable person. Chihiro-chan said he was even class representative with her. Oh," She turned to the girl in question. "Is he the boy you said was top of your class this year?"

"Er…yes? Uh…" Chihiro did not like that sparkle in her mother's eye. "Um, but he's really lazy. Yeah. I've never seen him do any work, ever! He's all about sports – you know, athletes have their priorities all mixed up. And really, he's friends with a bad crowd – they're always having girls throw themselves at their feet when they win games. Yeah, so, he…uh…has a really large ego…" _Must convince her that Kohaku is evil!_

"Oh, and he's athletic too? Is he the one on the football team? I was talking to Hideaki-san the other day and she was saying that her daughter was raving about him. She had nothing but good things to say about him. What was his name again…Nigomoto? No, Nigihashi? No…"

"Nigihayami Kohaku?" Her father squinted his eyes and stroked a nonexistent beard.

"Yes, that was it!"

"Does he play forward for the school team?" Her father was now half-standing from his chair.

"Uhhh…" Chihiro did not like that look. It was the demonic gleam that only talk of her father's favorite pastime could produce. She'd often felt that her father had wished she'd been a boy. He often talked loudly about his days on his high school's team, always ending with a proclamation that football built character. He'd even tried to teach Chihiro how to play once, but that had ended quickly when the two had stepped back into the house with the younger having a bloody nose. It wasn't her fault that she'd been too focused on wringing the bottom of her shirt to notice that he'd kicked it straight at her!

"Yes, I think he does." Her traitorous mother answered into the pause.

Chihiro cringed, waiting for the inevitable wave of Everything Bad that this would bring. Her father was always flying off on whims, and though her mother was always content to follow along, Chihiro thought that not a single adventure had turned out well.

So she was very surprised when he abruptly stood up fully and left the room.

There was another silence. Chihiro sat stunned. Her mother continued peeling an avocado. _What just happened? Where did he go? There aren't any gun dealers around here, are there? No, but his keys are still here. Why doesn't Mom care? And where did that avocado come from?_

"You know, Chihiro-chan, this makes me very relieved." Her mother spoke quietly as she worked. "When we first moved to this town, you were so unhappy. The entire way here, you sat in the back of the car, sulking."

Chihiro frowned slightly, not seeing where her mother was going with this bizarre line of thought. She watched as her mother deftly removed the pit from the avocado and began slicing it. There was an innate grace in her movements that Chihiro knew she herself lacked when it came to anything domestic.

"For almost a month after we got everything set up here, you would go straight up to your room after school. You'd come down, eat dinner quietly, and then lock yourself up again. Your father and I were really worried. We even talked of moving back."

Chihiro blinked in surprise. While she had figured that she wasn't completely off the hook, even with her father missing and presumed angry, this sort of conversation wasn't quite what she had been expecting. _I mean, I was ready to fend off questions about what I wanted to name my first born son, not receive the third degree about things from so long ago…_

"So imagine our surprise when your first report card came home!" Her mother laughed humorlessly, shaking her head slightly. She scooped some rice out of a nearby pot. "We couldn't make any sense of it. I mean, we always knew you had the potential, Chihiro-chan, but you never had the ambition."

Chihiro could distinctly see herself at the age her mother was describing. She'd been a gangly sort of kid, with spindly legs and a meek demeanor. Her dull brown hair had always been put up into a ponytail and her face was perpetually showing dissatisfaction. When used, her voice usually proclaimed said dissatisfaction. It was certainly a far cry from the girl she was today.

"If you'd been older, we'd have thought it was some kind of reverse psychology! We could handle it if your schoolwork had dropped in caliber, but what could be said when your child shoots miraculously to the top of the class – and stays there? And so, we said nothing, but hoped that you'd make good enough friends in this school that you'd get over the hurt of losing the precious ones from before. It always seemed like you were chasing some impossible ideal of a person from childhood." She spread the rice out over a small straw mat and crossed the kitchen to pull a container out of the fridge.

_ I didn't have any real friends there either._ Chihiro thought to herself rebelliously as she slouched down onto the table. _They were friends, yes, but none of them were really close to me. We'd play, but I was always too shy to really get to know them all._ She paused to muse on the irony of the fact that even today, she didn't really have close friends. Sure, Miya was good at guessing her moods, mollifying her temper and prodding Chihiro into doing certain things, but it was still a level short. There was nobody to know her thoughts, solve her problems or finish her sentences. _Well, technically, Kohaku is three for three, but we're just going to chalk that up to him being an agent of Bob's immortal nemesis…uh…Bab, the evil pumpkin-top of Doom._

Despite being enraptured in visions of epic battles between the two immortals, Chihiro couldn't really shake the feeling that her mother was more correct that she ought to be.

"But it always seemed like nobody was good enough here. That you were trying to make yourself inhuman in your perfection, like that would somehow solve your problems. And it seemed like it was working – I've seen you with Miya-chan and the girls. You're still untouchable. It's like you were in your own fortress. My darling girl went from being too shy, to being too wary.

"But this." She paused as she sliced the fish into thin strips, layering it onto the rice along with the avocado and some cucumber strips. She continued as she began rolling the mat upward, so the rice stuck together. "This is the first time that you've let someone in, Chihiro-chan. I only know of Kohaku-kun through others, but he's done the impossible – he's changed you."

"What! You've completely misinterpreted the situation, Mom!" Chihiro shot upward like a bullet. "We're rivals! Enemies! On opposing sides!" _How many more ways do I have to say this before you cotton on! You've turned to the enemy, haven't you? You're also working for Bab the Evil! Maybe she's be-spelled you! Appeal to Bob the Merciful and maybe you'll be saved!_

Sending her a look that questioned her sanity and judgment, her mother silently proffered a plate of freshly-made sushi and a mug of tea. Chihiro resented that look (even if it were justified)…but she was hungry. Stuffing a piece into her mouth, she decided that her mother had bought herself a few more minutes of life. Not that she deserved it. _Well, there was that whole thing about housing me for nine months within her body, but that doesn't really count._

"Chihiro-chan," Her mother took the seat across from her. Chihiro noted that she was eating the sukiyaki. "We've just gone over how intelligent you are, so why the sudden act of denial? Be sensible."

"I'm not Sen!" Chihiro replied, a bit shrilly, before realizing that her mother had no idea what she was going on about. "I mean, I don't understand where you're getting all this from. He's just some boy. That's all." She sulkily popped another piece into her mouth, ignoring the little glob of wasabi on the side.

"Chihiro-chan, this isn't the first time you've had a boy like you." Her mother's stern face was only accented by her upswept hair.

Chihiro choked on the sushi. _How do you know that!_

"But this is the first time that you've let it keep going. Every other time, you've simply given them a straightforward answer – and don't look at me like that. I'm your mother. Of course I know."

"I'm going to put this piece of sushi down, and then I'm going to walk slowly towards the door. Please try to refrain from inflicting any more psychological trauma to me in that time frame." Chihiro spoke very slowly, as if it would make things better.

"Chihiro-chan, be serious. It's a very natural thing, to like a boy. And I think he's a good match for you."

_ The only match that I want involves the two of us and lots of sharp, pointy objects! Preferably in the air, and speeding toward his big head!_

"Alright," Her mother sighed and gestured with her free hand. "What about him don't you like?"

"Everything." If Chihiro was going to be forced to participate in this conversation, it was going to darn well be equally painful for the both of them!

"Define 'everything' in short, concise phrases that consists of his actions, characteristics, or qualities." _Damn._

"He's…he's infuriating!" Chihiro snapped. "He's everywhere – and he does everything perfectly. I can't find a crack in his façade, and I can't let him get under my skin! I don't know what his motives are, and I don't trust him because of that. But he seems to know me – far too well! I don't understand him!"

_ And I don't understand why I kissed him, or why he responded! I don't understand why being near him makes me feel nostalgic and young again. I don't understand how he seems to read me like a book. And most of all, I don't understand why I like him!_

_ Oh Bob, I did not just say that._

_ Well, 'think that', but – oh my Radish Deity, I…_

Chihiro was pretty sure that there weren't enough mental slaps in the world to wake her from this nightmare. She wanted to cry and wail. She wanted to chop things into itty bitty pieces. She settled for furiously stuffing more sushi into her mouth.

_ Okay, well, maybe it's ok for me to like him…as a fellow classmate. I mean, 'like' isn't that far from 'wishing a plague upon,' right? Or, maybe I like him as a suitable foe? Well, I mean, he's a good football player, maybe once I take over the world, I'd like to have him guarding the moat to my castle with his Football Kicks o'Terror._

_ Right. That was pathetic. Maybe you actually DO like him as a person? As a friend? As a boy? Why always see it as the glass is half-empty?_

_ No, that's right. The glass **is **half full – of poison!_

"Chihiro-chan, breathe, please." _How are you so calm! I'm having a mental meltdown of the Chernobyl level and you're concerned with petty things like breathing!_

"That's better. Chihiro-chan, just let all of this tension go. It's not getting you anywhere – maybe it's not a façade? Maybe he really does care about you? You're making this out to be something terrible – haven't you ever heard the expression 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade?'" Her mother smiled brightly. Chihiro suspected that she was envisioning future grandchildren again.

"No," She replied as haughtily as her delicate mental state could handle, "I've heard of the expression 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade and throw it back in the face of the person who gave you the lemons until you get the oranges you originally asked for!"

"Chihiro-chan!" But her mother was laughing in spite of herself. "But maybe you have oranges, and you just don't know it yet?"

"No." Chihiro crossed her arms across her chest and pouted. She vaguely recollected that this was a very common pose for her twelve year old self and reveled in the irony.

"Honestly, prodigies these days – they solve complex linear algebra problems, develop winning game plans in sports and fly up the social ladder…but show them a boy who cares, and they'll say it's impossible." _Flattery will buy you ten more minutes of life, but it will not change my mind. I refuse to admit anything! Er…not that – oh screw it – I stand by my statement._

_ It's ok if a split personality of mine likes him – as long as nobody ever finds out._

"Chihiro-chan," Her father strode into the room suddenly, "You're inviting Kohaku-kun to dinner tomorrow evening."

_ Damn you to the seventh level of hell, Murphy._

"I'm going out to meet the boys, honey. I can't wait to tell them about what our little Chihiro-chan has done."

Chihiro's jaw dropped, even as she realized that her father had finally dressed to resemble a reasonably sane man. _First you're in a huff about his existence, and now you're jumping to conclusions and…and…are going to parade me around like a particularly clever pet! What next? Jump through the burning hoop, into the burning well and save little burning Timmy?_

"I think that's a wonderful idea. Have fun with the boys, honey."

Chihiro just heard the death toll knell a second time.

_

* * *

_

It was a bright and sunny morning. Chihiro felt that thunderclouds would have been more appropriate. Or perhaps a red moon, and tidal waves. She wasn't really particular.

She had tried to argue with her parents. After the proclamation. Through the afternoon. Through her mother's favorite soap opera. Before dinner. During dinner. After dinner. Through the sports report.

She had tried every trick in the book and even a few that she had made up on the spot. But it had been to no avail – she hadn't gotten so much as a bone thrown in her general direction.

And so, her night had been another sleepless one. She was rapidly accumulating a lot of sleep debt. _Plus_, she felt, _a lot of good karma for all the bad things I've been put through this week_. She groaned and shifted her head a little bit, hoping to find a softer portion of her desk to catnap on. She'd had nightmares about silly things (pigs, that stupid flying whale again, a friendly lamppost) and about really quite horrifying things (yesterday's test grade involving the letter C - but without any cookies, dinner tonight and an old hag that she felt embodied the general traits she'd assigned to Bab the Evil Pumpkin-top.)

She was not looking forward to seeing people. She'd been lucky thus far in the morning, but if there was one thing Chihiro had learned this week, it was that it was really stupid to rely solely on luck.

Well, truth be told, her current motto was "You're an idiot if you rely on luck when you could bribe, maim, kill, and otherwise politely convince people to see things your way."

Sitting in the classroom, Chihiro found herself drifting off instead of plotting today's agenda. She'd left her home at the crack of dawn, not wanting to hear her father chortling about dinner plans. She'd showered and then practically bolted from the house, barely bothering with throwing her hair up into a ponytail with a hair tie in the rush. Consequently, she'd been forced to forgo breakfast and was feeling rather lethargic at the moment. Eventually, her classmates would trickle into the room and on any other day she'd care about the terribly impression she would give them.

But not today.

She thought of calming things, like the sound of rushing water, the feel of the wind through her hair, the smell of Miya's shampoo as her hair tickled Chihiro's nose…_Wait…_

"Good morning!" Miya greeted cheerfully. "Did you sleep okay?"

Chihiro cracked one bleary eye open, decided against wasting more energy and buried her head into her arms. "I'll tell you when I'm finished."

Miya wasn't persistent – persistent was **defined** by Miya. She leaned further over her prone friend, understanding her sleep deprived state but feeling not an ounce of pity. "I brought breakfast," she lured in a sugary voice.

"Good. Go eat it." A small part of Chihiro did a jig at the astonished expression on Miya's face. A larger part of Chihiro wanted the food, but she told herself that pride was rich in all the essential amino acids and vitamins. But it still tasted liked wood. _Oh, no, wait, that's the desk._

"What do you want, Miya-chan?"

"Hmm, that's odd." Miya struck an exaggeratedly confused pose.

"What's odd?" Chihiro took the bait.

"Well, when Ogino Chihiro is annoyed, she usually just gives her victim a 'look' – one that's usually saturated in the 'if you don't get out of my face within the next three seconds I can't be responsible for where your limbs might end' sort of charm." Satsu's wit, it seemed, was not dulled in Chihiro's absence.

"Yeah, and if anything is to be said to the offender, it's a quick and painful death by a snarky cluster of words." And there was dear Sora, playing role.

"Very rarely, though, does she just sit there, and take the abuse." Miya raised an eyebrow. "Here's a donut, tell us what's wrong."

If Chihiro had been 'lucky' this morning, she felt she was reaching "goddess" level at this point. _Sugar, and no interrogation? I will sacrifice a hundred pumpkins tonight!_ In the blink of an eye, she'd inhaled her first donut and was working her way through the second.

"So that's one problem that Miya the Magnificent has solved already. Bring on the next one." The girl in question settled herself comfortably in the chair in front of Chihiro's desk.

Chihiro paused. This wasn't the sort of thing she'd normally talk to Miya (or Satsu or Sora) about, but she was at her wit's end. And maybe she felt a bit guilty for running out on them like that last night. But only a little. _I'm just too tired to care anymore, let them gloat if they want to._

She muttered under her breath in a rush.

"Sorry, I don't speak Chihiro-ese. In Japanese, if you please?"

"I…Well, my mother and father want me to…" Chihiro felt her cheeks heating up, "I have to ask Him to dinner."

"Oh." There was a pause.

Chihiro kept eating the donuts. _Maybe if I eat enough of these fast enough, I can claim a stomachache and then avoid having to ask Him the Question. No, with my luck, he'd try some sort of mouth-to-mouth stomachache cure that makes me think of things that I really shouldn't - this desk is very nice. Yes. Nice and safe. What a good little desk.  
_

"Chihiro-chan," Miya was looking kindly down at her. _This isn't going to be good._ "The skills you've acquired, while still rudimentary at best and rather rusty, to tell the truth…er…well, I think it'll work out okay, is what I'm trying to say."

Chihiro used the all of intellect that got her the number two position in the class to blink once. Twice.

"What the-"

"What Miya-chan is saying, Chihiro-chan, is that this is wonderful news."

"Yeah, that means our work here is done!" Sora piped in enthusiastically.

"But Miya-" She began, but was cut-off

"No, Chihiro-" Miya tried to hijack the spotlight, but Chihiro was having none of it.

"Miya-chan, listen to me for a second!"

"Chihiro-chan, no. Hear me out, first"

"Miya-chan!"

"Chihiro-chan!"

"Miya-chan!"

"Sora-chan!"

"Er, Sora-chan, why did you just say your own name?"

"I felt left out?"

Chihiro couldn't help it; she tried to hold it in, but began to giggle. Her giggles turned into outright laughter and for the first time in almost a week, she found herself laughing without a care in the world.

"Chihiro-chan, what I was trying to say before Sora-ko interrupted, was that I –we- are behind you, all the way. We're your friends, and we've been acting a bit boorishly these past few days, but that doesn't mean we like you any less. We're sorry for whatever we've done to upset you – we didn't mean to make you run out like that last night."

"I'm sorry, too, Miya-chan. I've been acting a bit off all week, I know. You're just trying to do what you think is good for me, and even if you annoy me in the future (like I know you will), I promise I'll trust you better next time."

"Aww, are we over being sappy and lovey, now?" Satsu snorted, swiping a donut from Chihiro. "I think I'm going to have cavities. No more of that, ever again. Really."

Chihiro rolled her eyes. She couldn't believe her luck today – not only was Miya not unhappy with her, but she wasn't going to be questioned about her behavior, and there was no teasing or heckling about her current predicament.

If she was lucky enough to be a goddess, Chihiro imagined herself to be a Master God now, subject only to the words of Bob himself.

She had her friends…and they were supporting her in her time of need. She was home free. All she had to do was find Kohaku, ask him to dinner, somehow survive that ordeal without having to bury anything and squash any rumors that try to form. And _not_ let anyone know that there was even the slightest possibility that she didn't despise Kohaku's small intestines anymore.

Cake.

"But speaking of Boy Wonder, where is he?" Miya muttered under her breath as their classmates began to trickle in.

"What do you mean?" Chihiro asked back in a low voice, trying to rub crumbs off her face.

"He wasn't at morning practice today. I wonder if he'll be in class today. Or, if he isn't, where he was."

"Maybe he had some student council thing to do?" Sora shrugged.

"No, then Chihiro-chan would have had to be there too. She's his fellow class rep, remember?"

"Ooooh yeah."

"Sora-chan, how did you get into Class A?"

"Besides my stellar intellect, I have a shining personality, I'll have you know."

"Right. I'd check that personality of yours, I think it's a bit tarnished, truth be told."

"Jealousy doesn't become you, Miya-chan."

"Nonsense, you're just – Oh, whoops, sorry Yamamoto-san, I'll move." Miya stood from the chair she was in as its rightful occupant approached.

"Oh, we'd best take our seats – you know how our homeroom teacher gets when we're not following the seating chart." Satsu pulled a face.

"Yeah, yeah – and it looks like you got off easy for now, Chihiro-chan. Looks like he's gone for the period." Miya scurried toward her desk as their middle-aged teacher walked into the room with a sour expression.

Chihiro sighed. She actually had quite a few things she wanted to ask Kohaku, some of which threatened to bring a rosy hue to her face again. She was tired of "aloof and mysterious" – she wanted answers and a good long explanation. However, the one good thing about him being gone (even if 'gone' was secret code for 'off seducing some other innocent teenaged sleuth by reading her mind') was that it delayed a conversation Chihiro, despite her previous bravado and curiosity, still wasn't sure she would ever be ready to have.

**Author's Addendum:**

**A little late, but technically, this is way earlier than I ever planned to have this chapter out. This just proves that I'm not above being bribed.  
**

**I'm still not happy with this. I didn't plan it well and I expect that I will probably be replacing the content of this with a second, corrected version of this chapter within the week. The basics will stay the same, though some things will be edited. I needed to get into the plot of it. Which meant lots of thinking, and not much Kohaku. I promise that'll change with the next few chapters. And you'll be getting those explanations that you've been waiting patiently for. As an aside, I realized today that I subconciously modelled Miya off of somebody I know; she'd kill me if she knew.  
**

**If you're looking for suggestions of work in the meanwhile, I highly recommend puttering over to read "Burning Brightly," by Aishuu. It's an Alternate Universe, so while having read Hikaru no Go would be great, I think it's well enough written to draw you in even without having read the manga. I also suggest reading "Gabriel" by Shikatanai, as the quote about relying on luck is originally from her.**

**Beating a goat will make it pull the plough. Feeding it carrots will make it pull the plough faster. Not that I'm a goat.  
**

**Though, perhaps if Aishuu is up for another round, you may see another chapter in another month.**

**Until then.**

**082406v1**


	9. To Fuzzy Feelings and Fridays

**Changes**

**Chapter 9: To Fuzzy Feelings and Fridays**

**Disclaimer: Still not mine.**

**I think I still owe Aishuu a chapter, but this one's solely the result of _arrana_.**

* * *

Bored did not begin to describe Chihiro. The seat one row behind her and to her left was still conspicuously empty, as it had been for the entire morning. Chihiro couldn't think of another time where Kohaku had just been missing like this.

Chihiro took a deep breath and tried to focus on the lesson at hand rather than the boy presently not at hand. _Ok, so technically, he's really only been off the radar for a few hours. No need to send out an orange alert yet. It's not like he's been kidnapped or is being tortured by an enemy for leading a double life as a spy or anything._

_There. I've established that he's fine, wherever he is. Now I should be able to pay attention._

Three seconds passed and Chihiro began to fidget in her seat. This was behavior at odds with the façade she had maintained since her arrival in this town. _Damnit, why don't I care anymore? Why can't I just go back to being top of my class without any of this drama that came along with that infuriating boy?! Why is he so intent on sabotaging my life – and who has hired him for this dastardly purpose? Was Bab the evil? He seems like the sort of person who would work for a hag like her…_

Resolute, Chihiro flipped to a blank sheet of paper. She needed a plan, and in order for that plan to work (unlike all of her previous plans this week), she needed to use all the information at her disposal. _Now, what should this plan be named? Operation Swamp Bottom – I'm going to figure out exactly what he's hiding in the depths of his mind once and for all, no matter how murky or mysterious he seems to be! _She suppressed a grin; somehow, even the name itself seemed like a good omen.

_First things first: name of target_. She wrote "Kohaku" in hiragana. Chihiro hesitated – what if someone were to borrow her notebook or accidentally see this page somehow? Normally, she'd dismiss the possibility as paranoia, but based on her luck this week, Miya or worse – Kohaku himself – would end up getting their grubby mitts on the plan. (_Actually, _Chihiro reflected_, Kohaku's nails are better manicured than mine._)

_But, better safe than sorry._ Chihiro began to erase his name but paused after removing the first character. _Haku._

Staring at the remaining two characters, Chihiro furrowed her brow, wondering why that name seemed to fit him so well. All she succeeded in doing was bringing about a twinge that politely informed her that his partner, a full-blown headache, was stuck in traffic but would be there shortly. She settled for underlining the characters and drawing a large question mark next to the name rather than ponder it any more.

_Next: Where did he come from? _Chihiro frowned and wrote in another large question mark. This plan was off to a slow start. _Curses! _

The twinge hadn't lied – there was now a sharp pain in the center of her forehead, just above her eyebrows.

_Just what I need – a headache brought about by sleep deprivation.But I'm not giving up. Ok, maybe if I just list everything I know about him, I can organize that information and see where to go from there. _Chihiro began writing a list: bathhouse, memory, falling towards an ocean.

_Wait. That last one was just a part of my dream – there was some sort of flying white whale or something. How silly. Of course whales can't fly. It should have been something more sensible, like a bird or a dragon or something._

_A dragon._ Her head gave a painful throb. Chihiro felt her eyes begin to water at the pain. Her blurred vision just reminded her more of that dream – the wind buffeting her face, the warmth from whatever she was clinging to, and her stomach giving the rest of her body its two-weeks' notice and citing that if it had wanted to deal with this many ups and downs, it would have chosen to be a foot, thank you.

Chihiro put her hands against her eyes, trying to abate the pain by adding a little pressure. She hadn't felt this much pain since that time she'd tripped in her haste to get out of the tub and hit the wall with her head. There had been this same sense of urgency then as there was now – she was so close.

_But to what? I'm still a few macaroni short of a sculpture – all I've got is a blob! _ Suppressing a groan, Chihiro tried to take deep, calming breaths to ease her headache. She had enough pain for three heads to be rolling in agony.

_In. Out. In. Out. Feng shui. Inner peace. Find your chi. Umeboshi. Gold-plated Bob the Magnificent. Chocolate bars._

Chihiro began to mentally chant, feeling her headache begin to recede. She was slightly disconcerted to find that the feeling of being so close to understanding **something** about Kohaku was receding at the same pace as the headache.

_This just goes to prove that thinking about him really is dangerous to my health. But I'm still supposed to bring him to dinner. What excuse can I use to get out of that…?_

_I wonder if I could get away with saying that I'm allergic to the very thought of him? _Chihiro remembered that her parents had already seen her and Kohaku in very close proximity to each other and cursed that Bab the Evil had it out for her.

_I know – I'll tell them that he's actually interested in dating Miya-chan!_ Chihiro smirked a little at the thought. If she could convince her parents that Kohaku was two-timing their little girl, there would be no way for him to stay in their good graces – football player or no.

And the fact that her mother would be giving Miya dirty looks for the next year was just an added bonus.

Chihiro was feeling almost cheerful again while savoring the idea of revenging herself upon Miya and Kohaku simultaneously when the classroom door swung open and Katsuya-sensei, the year three English teacher and football coach walked in. Following behind him with the grace of a god was Chihiro's own personal headache.

Her mood switched immediately from 'pleasantly temperate' to 'threatening to thunderstorm with a chance of hail.' Small cities began to evacuate.

Kohaku paused for a moment as the two teachers exchanged a few words. As soon as they finished, he turned and began to walk down the aisle towards his seat. His green eyes seemed a little colder than usual, but the moment he saw Chihiro, they seemed to soften. His entire posture seemed to relax from its tense state as he drew closer to her.

Chihiro, on the other hand, was sending him looks sharp enough to slice a train car in two. _Why does he __**always**__ appear when I want him to show up the least?_ Spitefully, Chihiro swiveled to level her glare at him even as he walked by her.

As the fabric of his uniform rustled past, she caught the scent of something sweet and herbal. Her stomach clenched as she tried to place the smell. It was so clean it felt like it was purifying her even as she just breathed; it felt nostalgic somehow.

The smell was gone an instant later, though and with it, all the feelings that had flooded into Chihiro disappeared once again. She was becoming quite used to this ebbing and flowing of emotions wherever Kohaku was concerned, which disturbed her considerably.

What disturbed her more was that with him so close to her, she couldn't even maintain the façade of being angry with him. _It's like all the anger I should have has been replaced by, I don't know…something like longing?_

Chihiro gave herself a good mental slap. _Longing? Let's not get ahead of ourselves. That was probably just the hormones talking and, no matter how devastatingly handsome he may be or how well he kisses, they don't get a vote in this._

She was going to get answers, or Bob help her. She was going to find out exactly what Kohaku's nefarious schemes were, why she was picked to be his hapless target and exactly where he had disappeared to this morning.

But first, she was going to have to ask him over to dinner with her parents.

* * *

Chihiro was pacing. _No, I'm not pacing. People pace when they're nervous. I'm not nervous – I just really enjoy walking in teeny tiny circles. I have nothing to be nervous about. It's not like my arch-nemesis and seducer isn't coming over to have dinner with my parents or anything._

_Oh, right. He is._

_So maybe I am pacing. There's no law against pacing is there?_

This had seemed like a good idea at the time. Really, it had.

"Ask Kohaku to dinner." _Oh yes, of course, please, come over and meet my parents. Meet the voracious eating machine I call my father and the overly prim etiquette book I call my mother._

Chihiro paused. Was she more afraid of her parents meeting Kohaku…or of Kohaku meeting her parents? _To be honest, they're both bad scenarios. It's like trying to pick if I'd rather face an angry giant baby who wants to crush me to death or a bottomless pit monster who wants to eat me._

_Ok, no. I will survive this. I am calm. I'm as tranquil as a river._ Chihiro imagined floating down the gentle current of a river, trying to relax her muscles with her inner chant. Unfortunately, her nerves were humming a nearly supersonic tune that refused to let her body unclench.

Maybe they were in league with her hormones, who were currently convincing Chihiro's stomach to do somersaults at every little noise. _Haku is late. Father is already upset at having his meal delayed – it's like he's got a split personality when it comes to Haku. One minute it's Haku-can-do-no-wrong, the next, it's how-dare-he-touch-my-daughter-the-pig!_

Her father snorted in displeasure from the adjacent room and Chihiro cringed. _ And he calls Haku a pig…_

There was a sudden twinge, and Chihiro realized that not only had she defended Kohaku in front of her father, but that she was calling him "Haku." Granted, it was only in her head, but what if it accidentally slipped out somehow? It would look like she was familiar enough with him to give him a nickname!

What if someone had seen her talking to him after class today? That, in conjunction with a supposed nickname, would seal her fate forever. She might as well curl up into a little ball and try to disappear.

Come to think of it, curling up into a little ball while chanting "Disappear, disappear. This isn't real!" sounded really attractive right now. Just as she began to crouch, having figured that she really didn't have all that much to lose by giving it a try, there was a knock at the door.

It was a very polite, refined knock. Chihiro wasn't sure exactly how one's knock could be coaxed into being both very polite and refined, but she did know exactly who could manage it.

"…Kohaku-kun's here." _He even has a better knock than me. What is this? One-up Chihiro day? Make her feel inadequate some more?_

"About time he was." Her father ground out from his position. Chihiro found herself wondering once again if he had a firearms license. Once again, she was disturbed by the fact that she didn't know whether the idea of Kohaku sitting across from her father as he stroked a shotgun lovingly was a very good image or a very bad one.

Sighing, she chose the side of reason. That is, the side that had food.

"Daddy, please wait until after dinner to eviscerate him – you know how mum won't let you eat before washing up and blood is such a pain to remove from clothing…"

Her father made a noise that was a cross between a gurgle and a strangled roar. While Chihiro tried to puzzle out exactly what colors on the rainbow of despair her father was currently feeling (_Indignant Indigo or Teeth Gnashing Green? Maybe a bit of Off-with-his-head Orange?), _her mother beat her to opening the door.

"Good evening, Ogino-san. I apologize for being late. I was detained unexpectedly."

"Oh, don't worry about it at all, Nigihayami-kun." Her mother smiled, fully in hostess mode.

"It isn't much, but I know that Chihiro-san likes chocolate, so…" He trailed off, holding up a chocolate cake that looked so decadent Chihiro felt that he'd stolen it from some god's dinner table. She tore her eyes away from the cake in time to see her mother shoot her a small smile as she accepted the cake and began to lead Kohaku in.

A small part of Chihiro was proud that Haku had managed to pass her mother's test of acceptability. A larger part of Chihiro was trying to squash the former part of Chihiro with a rather heavy lump of coal because there was no way her mother would ever believe that she wasn't involved with Haku after he bought a cake especially for Chihiro.

_He even enters like nobility,_ Chihiro groused to herself as he stepped into the house and removed his shoes.

Chihiro felt more than saw her father move to stand in front of her. _Dad always acts like some sort of farm animal whenever he can't get food fast enough. It's a pity nobody warned Haku that daddy cares little for manners and less for pretty boys that try to seduce his daughter. _She grinned, waiting to see by what method her father would shred her arch nemesis to pieces.

"Oh, and I'm not sure if you have time in your busy schedule, but a friend of mine happened to have two extra box tickets to this year's semifinal and final football games. I have no use for them, but maybe you would…?" Once again, Kohaku trailed off, producing two tantalizing sets of tickets from nowhere.

"Why, thank you. Well, come along young man, dinner is waiting." Her father's eyes seemed to sparkle as he accepted the bribe – _because that's exactly what it is!_

_Did everybody see that?_ Chihiro demanded inside of her head, _he grows on you! He's like a tall, dark and devastating cancer!_

She could only watch in horror as he stepped aside to make way for her mother to pass in front of him. As her mother and father disappeared toward the dining room, Chihiro scrambled to follow them, not wanting to be left alone in a room with the much too-perfect being that existed (it seemed) solely to make her life miserable.

_Why can't he just leave well enough alone?_ She plopped down into the nearest seat as gracelessly as possible, wanting to have nothing to do with Kohaku or any of the eerie perfection he seemed to display. _To hell with perfection and its soul-sucking-ly beautiful green eyes._

She pointedly ignored those said-same eyes as Kohaku walked into the dining room. With her father seated on her right, at the head of the table, and her mother's apron on the seat to her left, Kohaku was forced to sit across the table from her. _Success – a foot and a half of solid table between us!_

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye (all the while pretending to be very interested in the kitten-patterned potholder sitting on the table) to gauge his reaction.

She was surprised to see him grinning. Nigihayami Kohaku smiled demurely – he never grinned like a lunatic who just found out that the moon really was made out of cookies. Chihiro was so surprised that she forgot to ignore him and turned to get a better look. _Are my eyes deceiving me again or is he actually grinning – and grinning at __me__?_

Trying to focus on anything but how her insides had stopped churning in hunger in favor of having a party replete with streamers, confetti, and various other cheering party guests, Chihiro strained to pick up the faint tinkling sound that seemed to emanate from where Kohaku was walking. She could almost see his hair beginning to fan out around him as a swirl of air wrapped around him.

Chihiro blinked. _There can't be any wind inside of a house. Did I hallucinate the whole thing?_ She scrutinized Kohaku's now seemingly-normal grin-less appearance. Neither of her parents seemed to have noticed anything strange and she had just begun to ease back from the edge of her seat (_When did I end up sitting way up here?) _when that impossible breeze brushed her bangs, tickling her cheeks and flooding her nose with that same, strangely clean scent.

She strained to remember what it was that felt so nostalgic and then, with a sharp jerk, Chihiro stood straight up, staring at the boy sitting across from her.

She remembered.

She remembered the river god who had given her the herbal cake, the daikon radish patron who had shared an elevator with her, the no-face monster that she had let in.

She remembered the bathhouse, the soot-balls who fed the flames, the train ride to Swamp Bottom.

She remembered Bo, the three green heads, and Yubaba.

She remembered Kamaji, Rin and Zeniba.

She remembered Haku.

"Haku." Chihiro liked how the name rolled off her tongue. She was drunk with the rush of memories. It felt like she was falling, just like she had been in her dream. _I have to get a grip – but everything is shifting and roiling. Oof, I think I'm going to get seasick and I haven't even left my house… When did everything get so complicated? _

As darkness began to appear at the periphery of her vision, Chihiro vaguely registered a warmth encircle her. _How incredibly cliché_, she thought to herself before giving into total blackness.

* * *

**Author's Addendum:**

**I'm sorry…I just couldn't help myself. (If you've read any of arrana's work, you'll know exactly what line I'm talking about). If you haven't, but like Naruto, I'd highly suggest scuttling over to her profile to start reading. **

**While her own work is amazing, I'm also happy to announce that she and I are going to be co-writing a story for the Naruto genre together: **

**Legendary****  
(**_**Everyone knows that people unconsciously pick up the characteristics of their mentors. That's why Naruto has a frog-shaped wallet and a perverted jutsu. That's why Sasuke has homicidal urges and a tendency to scare little boys. And that's why I've suddenly become the Legendary Sucker and could really use a strong drink.)**_

**This ****new story will be posted under her account****, so there's yet another reason to find her. (It's not hard – it's linked from my own account's profile). Give it a read – chances are, if you like this story, you'll like that one. ;)**

**Things I don't own in this chapter: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; Cliché/Cinderella**** at the Grave by arrana, Frozen Moonlight by JaneDrew.**

**Finally, to answer some questions:**

**Q: Are you going to update anytime soon?  
A: Yes, look – I just did! Oh, wait, you mean the next chapter already? Well, I update my profile page with the status of my writing, so you can stalk me there if it'll make you feel better? (or you could go read Legendary if you're so anxious…)**

**Q: How long is Changes going to be?  
A: Originally, it was supposed to be 7 chapters for the 7 days that passed in Chihiro's timeline. I think that it got a little out of hand in the middle somewhere, but we still have one more chapter to go. Maybe two, if I'm feeling especially cruel.**

**I hope you enjoyed it. If you didn't like it…uh, sorry? Feel free to yell at me in a review, I guess? Feedback is appreciated (and usually makes me feel guilty enough to start writing the next chapter) and I'd really like to hear whether people are unhappy or happy with the shift in direction… I'd half-expected someone to demand that I stop writing before I completely ruin the happy-go-lucky mood of the first few chapters...  
**

**Until the next.**

**062808v2**


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